


Empty Vessels

by saltedpin



Category: Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 21:06:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedpin/pseuds/saltedpin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even in this place, Kain realises the futility of trying to escape his past. Set during 012.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic kind of assumes that Kain has been on Mount Ordeals for a couple of years or so at the time he was pulled into Dissidia.
> 
> Huge, HUGE thanks to Poisonstrawberries (if you aren't reading [The Door of Souls](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7219108/1/The_Door_of_Souls), you really should be), Glynnis and Apathy, who I'll never be grateful enough to for all their cheerleading and beta reading efforts <3

Kain had never felt completely at home in Order's Sanctuary.

The air always seemed thin and appallingly still – it set his teeth on edge, almost as much as the inactivity he'd been forced to endure these past two weeks while the Warrior of Light was away on patrol. The light in Sanctuary never seemed to fade, and Cosmos was everywhere; even now, with its pale spire still in sight, he could feel her presence drifting on the edge of his consciousness, like a bright light only just visible on the horizon, mild yet intrusive.

Unable to force himself to wait any longer, he'd left the place last night and met the Warrior of Light near the Crescent Lake, knowing he'd cross it on his way back to Sanctuary. Dawn had seemed so far away then, the sky ink-black, and the stars, grown few in recent times, still bright in the sky.

Daybreak did come, though - thawing the freezing earth and creeping across the floor of the cave they had spent the night in. The Warrior of Light was usually a light sleeper, but when he did sleep deeply, he slept like the dead. Even the pale yellow sunlight that crept across his face hadn't stirred him.

Kain knew he should wake him; Lightning had been like a caged animal these past two weeks, her desperation to be away from Sanctuary almost palpable, and she would not be happy with any delay to their departure. But even as he watched the sun inch higher over the slate-grey water that surrounded them, Kain could not quite bring himself to wake the Warrior – uninterrupted sleep was a luxury that they were not often afforded outside of Sanctuary's walls. It was too tempting simply to remain for one moment more, then one moment more after that.

Despite his intentions, when he turned away from the mouth of the cave, he found the Warrior's eyes open, watching him.

"Ah," said Kain, moving away from the cave's entrance. "The kraken wakes."

Kain watched as the Warrior's eyes narrowed slightly, and a muscle almost imperceptibly twitched in his neck, as if he was trying to decide whether to turn his head and check that a kraken had not crawled in while he slept. Kain had to swallow a smile.

"You should have woken me," was the first thing the Warrior said as Kain walked towards him. "Is it dawn?"

"Barely."

Closing his eyes, Kain pressed a kiss to the Warrior's collarbone, momentarily pushing from his mind the inevitable belting on of armour and sharpening of steel that defined so much of his life.

The Warrior was so deft with a sword and shield that Kain had a hard time believing that he'd been anything other than a fighter in whatever world he'd come from, though there was scant evidence of it on his body. Kain could put a name to every mark on it, all of them received since he'd known him. He'd forgotten the origins of his own oldest scars – the Warrior of Light sometimes asked him about them, and Kain had done his best to remember – "Burn from a flan."; "Training accident."; "Cavebat bite."; "Naga. Probably." The only time he'd been dishonest with the Warrior was when he had asked about the thick white stripes that latticed his back; Kain had told him he did not remember where they‘d come from, and the Warrior had not pressed him.

Kain sometimes wondered if asking him about these wounds was an attempt to trigger something of his own memories, looking for a story he might have lived himself at some other time, in some other place. If it had worked, the Warrior had never told him – as far as he knew, the Warrior remained without memories, without a past of any kind.

Now, he could see the usual look of mild curiosity on the Warrior's face as he spread Kain's hand flat between his fingers, looking at the single line that ran over his right palm, stark against the dark and calloused skin.

"How did you get it?"

Kain hesitated. "A friend."

The Warrior glanced up. "Sparring?"

"No." Kain swallowed. "It was an oath I swore. Perhaps a foolish one."

"Foolish?"

Kain almost smiled, the memory bittersweet. Cecil had never been very interested in literature or in reading in general, but once he did find something that caught his attention, he was tenacious with it. After reading some poem on the blood brotherhood of two ancient knights, he'd decided that he and Kain should follow in their footsteps.

For a moment, Kain thought back to that day with Cecil. They had believed themselves to be so grown-up, so knightly and so noble in their boys' blood oath, even as, Kain now realised, they had no idea what it was they were swearing to uphold. The ideals of knighthood were not its realities, and Kain wondered if Cecil had ever thought back to that day when he was alone in his room and asked himself where their childish dreams had gone.

It seemed like such a long time ago. They had been so young, feeling so much like the men they weren't, and Rosa had never looked more beautiful, and, he thought, she had never smiled quite like that at him before. The life he had imagined for himself that day could not have been more different than the one he had actually led.

Kain removed his hand from the Warrior of Light's grip, turning it over and hiding the scar in his fist. "I was a child. I didn't understand what swearing an oath meant."

"I'm sure you honoured it well."

Kain almost had to smile, though the humour in it would have been sour -- as if the Warrior could know just how badly he'd failed to uphold it. Perhaps it had been doomed from the start – tradition held that the cuts should be made to the hand that held the weapon, but he and Cecil had done it wrong, and the cuts had ended up on their off-hands instead. As if that had not been enough, Kain's cut had become infected, but he'd been too proud to go to a healer about it; instead, Rosa had noticed it and taken him aside. He had started to give her a reason for not going to have the wound cleaned, but she shook her head. _Dragoons don't make excuses,_ she'd said, her tone stern but her mouth smiling, the echo of her reprimand to him the first day he and Cecil had met simply a joke between them now.

For a moment, Kain almost had to close his eyes at the image of Rosa's golden hair, so vivid in his mind, head bent over his hand while the cool healing magic seeped from her warm fingers, moving over his palm.

How could he have ever wanted someone else in any capacity so long as he knew Rosa existed? But his love for Rosa had been a stillborn thing, something that he could never give expression to in any meaningful way. Of course, he'd given her things when they were young; he and Cecil had competed over who could pick the most flowers for her, or he’d begged her to let him wear her scarf in game matches against Cecil, but Rosa had always known how to walk that line and brought one token for Cecil and another for him. She’d always done her best to smile just as hard when it was Cecil who ended up flat on his back in the dirt. But time had revealed the truth, as it always did: Kain often wondered when exactly he had realised that he _knew_ , or if he had always known and had buried it in some deep and silent part of his mind until it could no longer be ignored.

He'd believed he'd found a way to quell, or at least to suppress, the burning feeling in his chest when he'd realised that Rosa had begun to seek out Cecil alone to say her goodbyes before they went into battle. Even now, in this foreign world, when he thought of it, he had to close his eyes and swallow past the sudden clench of his throat.

Kain pressed his lips again to the slow, steady pulse in the Warrior's throat, pushing the thoughts away; he was no longer in Baron, and Rosa was not here… but the Warrior of Light was. Kain didn't know exactly how he'd come to value the Warrior's company so much, except in that being around him seemed easy, almost too much so. Perhaps it was a case of equal solitude, or possibly it was because in all the time they'd spent together, Kain had never seen anything in the Warrior’s eyes but the appreciation of a well-timed kill and respect for valour that Kain himself had thought long gone. In any event, what he offered was wordless and calm, a brief reprieve for both of them.

"Perhaps we should be leaving."

Kain felt the shift of the Warrior's throat against him as he spoke, and he closed his eyes briefly before pulling back. "You're right, my friend. I must depart." Kain made himself smile. "Two weeks of patrol – what could be more pleasant?"

The Warrior blinked, tilting his head. "Yes," he said slowly, after a moment.

The next smile that pulled at the corners of Kain's mouth was genuine – he'd had so few warm and unguarded moments in his life that for a moment he hesitated, before curling the Warrior's fingers in his own and pressing them to his lips. "If I must go, then I promise on my faith, though I will not recoil from the enemy, I shall return to you."

The words of the traditional oath were out of his mouth almost without a thought – he'd said them to Rosa enough times that they remained imprinted on his mind, even after all this time. He'd always meant them when he’d said them, even though the words were so old they barely had any meaning beyond a formality to be observed before a soldier's departure. He'd stopped addressing the oath to her once she'd stopped coming to find him before he left and instead tossed them to whichever lady looked prettiest on the day, hoping to see jealousy in Rosa's eyes. In the end, the words had lost their meaning, becoming the gallant formality they had always been intended to be. But they came back to him now, and for the first time in a long time, he felt the lick of pride in his chest at repeating words that had once meant so much to him.

He raised his head again to find the Warrior looking at him with a mildly puzzled expression. "I'm sorry?" he said.

Kain almost smiled – he'd not expected the Warrior to understand. "It's something departing soldiers say to – people they’re leaving behind," he said, his mind supplying a hasty substitute for _loved ones._

The Warrior tilted his head again, as if trying to fathom something deeply confusing. "I can come with you, if you would like," he said, after a long pause.

Kain barely suppressed an exasperated sigh. "No, that won't be necessary," he said, watching as the Warrior furrowed his brow, as if looking for the correct response. Smiling slightly, he covered the confused tightness in the Warrior’s lips with a kiss he almost didn’t realise he’d leaned in for. While usually he might open his mouth, forcing the Warrior's jaw wide with his tongue, this time it seemed inappropriate. He simply lingered, chaste and serious as a squire, until he felt the Warrior smile beneath his lips.

***

In the end, he was surprised by how long it took Lightning to seek him out – he had been in the armoury for some time, sharpening his lance and packing provisions before he heard her step on the threshold.

"Where were you this morning?" she asked, her voice as harsh and demanding as always – as if she had a right to know, Kain thought, smiling tightly to himself.

"Away," Kain answered, knowing that the obtuseness would only make her more angry but unwilling to either lie or tell her the truth.

Turning and watching her out of the corner of his eye, he could see her open her mouth, presumably to demand more details from him. Instead, she just paused, her eyes raking over him. Kain saw her frown for a moment, before apparently deciding it was too much trouble and simply rolling her eyes.

"Forget it. If you don't want to tell me, then don't."

She turned and strode away from him, cape flapping behind her, and Kain could not help but watch her go.

He sometimes wondered why he felt the need to hide from her prying – he certainly wasn’t compelled to answer her like a child might some nagging nursery mistress. And yet, he could never escape the agitating possibility that she could see straight through him, straight to his core, and she could cut out from under him, with a single rightly placed question, the roots of what he had built for himself here.

The thought that she might be waiting for the most opportune moment made him more guarded with her than with any of the others. But even as he thought it, he rejected the idea – she may have been hostile, but she was not manipulative, and such calculated destruction was not in her arsenal.

And yet, he was unprepared to take the risk.

Kain hoisted his lance over his shoulder. Lightning and Cecil would be waiting for him by Order's Throne, and he could not reasonably delay any longer. In truth, he was anxious to be off.

Cosmos sat as she always did, radiating calm, the golden waves of her hair wreathed in light, the Warrior standing at her right. Kain barely listened to the words she gave them, hardly took notice of the small smile that creased her lips. Cecil bowed low when he took his leave; Lightning remained upright in stony silence, not looking at either the Warrior of Light or Cosmos.

After a moment, Kain inclined his head slightly, a courtly gesture that he would make to an equal, not at all appropriate for Cosmos, but not intended for her.

He could not bring himself to look back over his shoulder as he walked away.

***

It was over so quickly; Cecil had dashed forward and Golbez had vanished, disappearing within the deep clouds of dark magic that sprung up around him.

Kain had been speechless for a moment; the Cecil he'd known would rather have taken a blow himself than raise a hand to his brother -- once he'd discovered that Golbez _was_ his brother. Had he truly no memory of the man at all? He'd honestly seemed to believe that Kain had been in danger, and the attack he'd attempted was no feint.

Even without the benefit of the monster’s helm he’d crafted, Golbez's face was ever a mystery, his voice impassive. Nonetheless, Kain had to wonder if he had remained as stoic as he seemed as his younger brother had rushed towards him with intent to kill. He supposed Golbez was philosophical enough to package his feelings away, to tell himself that Cecil had no memory of him and would likely be horrified later, when and if he remembered.

Kain watched the back of Cecil's head as he walked ahead of him, seeming so utterly untroubled by what had just transpired. He had moved so easily into the role of the paladin, it seemed; Kain had barely known him when he had seen him again after the Tower of Zot, though he was unsure how much of that was the changes Mount Ordeals had made to his friend and how much had been the dark chatter in the back of his own brain, the eyes that had still been watching through his, waiting for the opportunity to snap back on the leash of his mind.

"Were you talking to him?"

Kain was jerked out of his thoughts – Cecil had stopped and half-turned back to him, a quizzical expression on his face.

"Talking?"

"To that Chaos warrior," Cecil said, his expression guarded. _He doesn't trust me,_ Kain realised. He wondered how much Cecil truly remembered, or if this was some as yet subconscious impulse warning him to be on his guard. It was a grim realisation, but one that Kain found easier to understand than the complete trust that Cecil had placed in him on the Lunar Whale, after two betrayals and against Edge's better judgement.

"Briefly."

"What did he say to you?"

Kain considered. "It may have been lies to demoralise us. It made little sense, in any case." That, at least, was not a complete untruth.

Cecil turned and walked on, but not before looking back at Kain and cocking his head – the same incorrigible gesture that Kain remembered him making since childhood and that, young though he had been, made him look about half his age again.

_Young. We were both so young. How could we have known?_

But he _had_ known, he and Cecil both – he remembered that same tilt of Cecil's head as they had picked over the charred remains of a village after the Red Wings and the dragoons had been called in to deal with it. It had been over and done with before the dragoons had arrived, and the smell of smoke had been strong in his nostrils as he had watched Cecil, covered head to toe in Dark Armour, turning over pieces of burnt wood that had once been someone's home.

"It was an easy win," he'd said, not raising his head as Kain approached him.

"Easy enough, when your foe lacks airships. Or cannons."

Cecil had looked up at him then, though his eyes were invisible behind his visor. "They were rebels, Kain."

"And their buried store of wooden spears shall threaten us no more."

Then there had been that same cock of the head, as if Cecil had not heard him right or simply did not understand. _And why should he?_ Kain had reflected bitterly sometime later. Cecil had known no other father than the king, and he would have died in the forest he'd been abandoned in if not for the benevolence of the man who had taken him in, elevated him far beyond what a nameless orphan could ever have expected: far beyond men who had a prouder heritage, more familial wealth, and arguably greater military skill. A pledge of unquestioning loyalty did not seem so high a price.

Kain had always wondered what lies Cecil had told himself to placate his conscience before his doubts had finally overwhelmed him, or if lies had even been necessary. Kain wondered if it was for love of Rosa that he had found the courage to speak at last -- or had it been that which had held him back for so long? Cecil may finally have found the commands of the king intolerable – even if he still found it easier to carry them out and question them later – but Kain did not imagine he would have found the thought of Rosa following him into exile, as she undoubtedly would have, to be a savoury one.

Prior to Cecil's final break from Baron, they had spoken of it only once. Cecil was to receive a commendation for valour in the field -- Kain had to wonder which village he'd burned down this time -- and he'd asked Kain to be his second. Tradition held that it should have been a fellow Dark Knight, but Cecil had insisted and the king had never been able to deny him anything.

He had slept that night on Cecil's floor as he had done when they were children, when he had deflected with laughter Cecil's – innocent, he had always assumed – request for Kain to come join him under the blanket. They talked, just as they had been the first time that Cecil had ever asked him, _What do you think of Rosa? She's pretty, isn’t she?_

"Do you ever wish you could leave all of this?" Cecil had asked him after roughly ten minutes of silence, during which the candle had burned down to a sallow yellow glow, and Kain had drifted to the cusp of sleep.

"All what?" he'd asked, sleepiness making him slow.

Cecil had hesitated. "I just thought… a soldier's life would be simple. A clear path. Orders to follow. A kingdom to protect. I sometimes think –"

He had cut himself off then, and Kain had seen his eyes dart towards him in the darkness. He realised Cecil was waiting for encouragement to continue.

Kain had opened his mouth to respond with something light and reassuring, before the full implication of Cecil's words, half-spoken though they had been, sliced through him, and anger welled up in his chest. How many men had both killed and died in the hopes of being in his friend's current position – a lord, a commander, the king's apparent heir – and how many men and their families had died in their homes in the name of a cause that not even Cecil Harvey believed in as he’d burned them?

Kain had always known that Cecil harboured kernels of self-doubt, and it made him angry to the point of incredulousness. What on earth did Cecil have to doubt? How much love, friendship, and reinforcement did he need? Cecil seemed to absorb it all almost without realising it was there, but still it didn't seem enough to extinguish his doubts. His men were fanatically loyal to him, Rosa loved him dearly, and the king had never made any secret of where Cecil stood in his affections, and in respect to the throne of Baron itself. And still, _and still_ , Cecil couldn't find it in himself to be happy. Thinking back on it later, Kain realised that it was at that moment that he had come the closest he ever would to truly hating his friend.

For a moment, he had almost been tempted to tell Cecil that yes, he should most certainly listen to his doubts, abandon his duties and leave the Red Wings, leave the kingdom. _Rosa need not follow you. And I would still be here…_

Instead, Kain had forced himself to speak lightly, burying his anger – _it had all come back to simple envy, in the end._ "A bit late, don't you think, Lord Captain, to be questioning your chosen career?"

Cecil had swallowed heavily before dropping his eyes from Kain's face.

"I'd never say the king was wrong," Cecil had begun again after a few moments, "but I think that… these rebels. Would it really be so bad to treat with them? I don't know what they could be demanding that would be so –"

"They're _rebels_ , Cecil," Kain had interrupted him. "You said so yourself."

Cecil's head had flicked towards him, and Kain had detected a trace of anger in his eyes. "And _you_ said they had no more than wooden spears."

In the darkness, Kain had sneered, whether at Cecil or at how stupid his own words sounded when parroted back to him, he didn't know. "It had to be done. Do you think it would have stopped there? If the summoners had gotten involved, what then? A protracted conflict? Our men dead in place of theirs? Better to cut it off now, quickly, before it spread."

He hadn’t believed it even as he'd said it – the summoners had no reason to enter a conflict with Baron and had seemed less than interested in an insubstantial rebel movement. But he'd still spat out the words, his anger with Cecil overriding everything else. It wasn't _for_ them to question why -- if Cecil had doubts, it was far too late to express them now, not when he and Kain had come so far together; not when Cecil had achieved so much beyond what either of them had ever expected. Kain had almost asked him if he thought that he _enjoyed_ cutting down barely armed villagers, but he’d simply grit his teeth instead, swallowing and willing himself not to say more, not trusting himself to stop once he had started.

In the moment that followed, Cecil had paused before letting out a hollow laugh that rang through the half-light, his own anger seeming to collapse in the face of Kain's. "Of course. You're right. I'm a fool."

Kain had not looked up at him but heard the puff of breath as Cecil blew out the candle and the rustle of blankets as he turned over in his bed. "Goodnight, Kain," he said, and after a few moments Kain had heard his breathing deepen into sleep.

 _I am a dragoon,_ Kain had told himself in the dark. _I do my duty._ For all that, sleep had not come to him for some time.

The memories of those evenings with Cecil were clear in his mind – Kain wondered, watching the back of Cecil's head as they walked, how much of these things Cecil would recall, even if his memories returned tomorrow.

Dawn had just begun to crest the horizon when he and Cecil finally arrived back at the camp. He didn't realise how far he had wandered and wondered how long Cecil had been looking for him before he’d found him.

"Nice of you to grace us with your presence," Lightning muttered when they appeared. "I don't suppose either of you actually managed to do anything useful while you were gone?" For once, Kain did not have the energy to antagonise her further, ignoring the obvious attempt to provoke him and walking to his tent, hoping to snatch a half-hour of sleep before the sun was fully risen.

Before crawling inside, he glanced back over his shoulder to where Cecil stood by the fire, the same tilt of his head, the same quizzical expression clouding his features.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much to Poisonstrawberries (who really deserves a co-write credit at this stage), Glynnis (for scouring out my typos) and Apathy (for read-throughs and lots of other stuff).

Golbez's words played through his mind during the return journey to Order's Sanctuary. Kain told himself that it was too outlandish to be true: soldiers did not come back from the dead. A wry smile pulled at the corners of his lips -- _outlandish_ was finding himself here in this foreign world to begin with.

_Look to your deeper memories._

"Were we friends?" Cecil had asked him, when Kain haltingly asked what he remembered. Confusion had covered his face, brow creasing in concentration as he reached for a memory that simply was not there. "I'm sorry. I don't seem to remember."

He had glanced up apologetically, and Kain had let out the breath he'd been holding, realising that he'd been waiting for the flood of recognition, the memory of so many betrayals, of everything he'd said and done, to come crashing down between them. That Cecil could not remember had almost seemed like a reprieve, before the dark, heavy feeling of envy that Kain knew so well washed over him. Of _course_ Cecil could not remember; Cecil was again free of the oppressive influence of their history, while Kain remained mired in it, even in this place.

The idea that, over time, Cecil's memories would begin to awaken curled through the pit of Kain's stomach like a toxin. Bit by bit, he would remember Kain's betrayal, and the entire series of events that had begun that day when they believed they had been sent on an innocent errand to the village of Mist. Swallowing, Kain realised that he often looked at Cecil searching for any hint that he had begun to remember – for a look in his eye, something in his manner that showed he knew Kain was someone he should neither love nor trust.

Kain closed his eyes.

_What deeper memories?_

Kain had long since stopped trying to force the fragments of his memory into a workable frame -- there were just too many utterly unplaceable things that seemed to fit nowhere: moments from a battle that he could not recall ever having fought, against an enemy he did not recognise; walking through a land that was not Baron with comrades he had never known; conversations with the Warrior of Light that they had never had. He had written them off as a side-effect of this strange world, or things that he was misremembering. _But if Golbez was telling the truth…_

Kain closed his eyes again, wanting to believe that he was simply confused, that his mind was a jumble of half-remembered things, disconnected from context.

 _Was there ever anyone else?_ He heard his own voice ask the question, even as he saw his own fingers trace the length of the Warrior's side, lingering on his shoulder blade. A long pause.

_Perhaps there was someone once -- a friend. She knew my name. She looked to be no more than a girl, but her eyes…_

In his mind's eye, Kain watched the Warrior's gaze slide away from his, staring into the distance.

_I don't know what happened to her. Sometimes I think she must have died, because suddenly she was not there, and I can remember… mourning her. But there's nothing else, Kain. Nothing._

"Are you still up?"

Kain was jerked from his thoughts by the sound of Lightning's voice as she walked up behind him, her watch over. He didn’t answer her nor turn to face her when she sat down next to him, stretching her legs out in front of her and leaning back on her palms.

"You’re not helping anything by not sleeping," she said. "Cecil and I have got it covered."

Kain continued to look away from her; for a moment he wondered, almost scornfully, if he asked her, whether she would tell him anything about the world she had come from, the world that had produced such soldiers as her and weapons like he'd never seen. She wore no armour or mail, but she was faster on her feet than anyone he'd seen. She could heal, but she was no white mage, as the women of Baron's court had been. Where Rosa had wiled her way into getting what she wanted, Lightning punched and kicked, shouted and swore. He wondered if she too had these memories that went nowhere, fit nowhere, and what she did with them.

Next to him, she exhaled loudly, frustratedly. "If you don't trust us, then fine."

Kain barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "I trust you to keep watch," he said, keeping his tone just short of patronising. "I'm simply not tired."

"Tch." Lighting looked away from him, into the deep layers of shadow beyond. "If you want to make yourself useful then, you could go and help Cecil."

"Perhaps."

Lightning looked at him from the corner of her eye, as if measuring him up. "I thought you and him were friends, anyway."

Kain paused, wondering what she was after. "I knew him," he said after a moment, his voice guarded. “I served with him.”

"Doing what?"

Again, he paused. "We were at court together. He… we were adopted by the same man."

Lightning snapped her head toward him. "That's a bit more than 'serving together'," she said. "Who was this guy?"

Kain considered obfuscating, but in the end, the temptation of hearing her reaction was too much. "The king."

She snorted through her nose. "That would be right," she muttered. "No wonder you have that pole up your ass."

"Indeed."

Lightning fell silent for a time after that. Eventually, she turned her head to look at him, and Kain almost had to grit his teeth to keep from looking back, not wanting to see the expression on her face.

"Does it bother you that he doesn't remember you?" she finally asked, and Kain was almost startled by the near-softness of her tone.

 _What is she really asking me?_ Kain wondered, swallowing, unable to comprehend what she wanted from him. "No," he answered after a pause.

The uncanny feeling that she _knew_ crept over him, knew something more than she was saying, was looking for some piece of information from him. He wondered if he would share it with her, if only he knew what it was. They walked an uneasy path – she both repelled and attracted him for reasons he could never quite pinpoint. Abrasive and dangerous as she was, Kain always found himself flirting with what he most feared, admitting things to her that were not so wise if his goal was to keep her away. In some respects, her differences from Rosa were superficial. Despite the diversity of their methods, he could never shake the feeling that both of them had always known more about him than they let on; could see straight through the walls he had so carefully put up throughout the years to protect himself. They both had a way of forcing him to uncomfortable places with their eyes.

Was he seeking permission from her? For a moment, he almost considered revealing to her what Golbez had told him.

 _No,_ he eventually decided. The idea that had taken root in his mind – the only method to be completely sure that none of his comrades were felled by manikins – would never be acceptable to her, and he had no doubt she would denounce him to Cecil and anyone else who would listen as soon as the words left his lips.

Perhaps she'd been right, Kain reflected – he didn't trust her. In a fight, there was almost nobody else he would rather have watching his back. But in this – in allowing her to glimpse something of his inner life – the thought was almost intolerable. He could picture the scornful twist of her lip, the derision he'd see in her eyes.

Next to him, Lightning drew one leg up, exhaling loudly. "Well, whatever," she said. "I'm sure you were a barrel of laughs to grow up with anyway."

Anger lanced through Kain, hot and sudden, and he opened his mouth to ask her how she _dared_ to presume to know anything about him and Cecil or anything that happened between them. Almost instinctively, he tightened his fingers around his lance, his blood pounding in his ears, before he snapped his mouth shut again, leashing his rage as he had done so many times in the past. He could not say anything that would tell her too much about the events of his past – perhaps not explicitly, but there was little she would not be able to infer from his anger. Certainly not for the first time – and, he supposed, not for the last – he was grateful for the shadow of his helm.

Keeping his voice level with some effort, he said, "I'm sure you too were a charming child. Your parents couldn't be more proud of what you've become."

For a moment, he saw her eyes widen with shock, and a small gasp escaped her lips. It was the first time that he could recall her ever looking anything other than fierce after he had insulted her, and he wondered if he had touched a nerve – and he realised, in a somewhat detached way, that he'd meant to. She had drifted too close, and now it was necessary to drive her away. "Fuck you, Highwind," she said, standing and stalking away. " _Fuck_ you."

***

On their return, Kain had sought the Warrior out, finding him in the armoury, and together they had made their way from Sanctuary to the quiet of the Crescent Lake. They had found a cave there, huddled behind a small waterfall, and the sound of the falling water almost made up for the air's corrosive stillness.

Kain knew he would have to address what Golbez had told him some time or another, to try to find a way to verify the truth, whatever that may turn out to be. But for now, he wanted simply to push the turmoil and confusion of the last few days from his mind.

This had always been easy – far too easy. The Warrior's mouth was always receptive to his kiss; his fingers dug into his hips when Kain moved against him. At these times it was too easy to forget who he was, to believe that things were simple and that he actually was the good man the Warrior of Light said he saw when he looked at him. The anger that so often threatened to overwhelm him was dampened, at least for the moment.

He lay awake for a long time after they had finished, his calm lasting only a few minutes before he began turning Golbez's words over and over again. Such things were not possible, but he could not think of any reason why Golbez should invent such a fanciful story, nor could he account for these miscellaneous memories, or why he should remember so much of the past while Cecil did not.

The Warrior stirred beside him; Kain had thought he was asleep, but when he looked up at his face, his eyes were open, watching Kain with an indefinable expression.

Kain almost reached up to brush his hair back from his face, but at the last moment stilled his hand. If the cycles had been continuing for some time, who knew how many the Warrior of Light had seen. Kain wondered, indeed, how many he himself had seen and how many times in previous cycles they had lain like this together, the soft fall of water the only sound.

Kain closed his eyes.

"What do you remember about your home world?"

There was a long pause, and Kain felt the Warrior go very still. "I've told you. I don't remember anything."

"Not your name?"

"No, Kain."

"No one who was special to you?"

"Kain."

"Someone must have called you by name once."

The pause that followed was so long that Kain wondered if the Warrior had simply decided he was not going to answer his questions anymore. He had almost given up hope of getting a response when the Warrior sat up, looking at him.

"Why are you asking me? You already know the answer."

Kain pulled in a breath. "You spoke of someone once."

The Warrior blinked. "I did?"

"You said she knew your name – that she'd called you by it, and you remembered walking with her. You said you remembered that she'd disappeared, but you didn't know how or why."

The Warrior blinked at him again, face utterly blank. "You must be mistaken," he finally said. "I don't recall – anyone I could have spoken of like that. You must know. You've known me since we came here."

Kain looked into his eyes, but they were, as usual, completely clear and without guile. There was no doubt the Warrior truly believed what he was saying.

 _I don't know what happened to her. Sometimes I think she must have died, because suddenly she was not there, and I can remember… mourning her. But there's nothing else, Kain. Nothing._

Did the Warrior truly not remember ever having spoken those words? Kain was tempted to believe that he never had, that it had been someone else entirely whom he had yet to remember, the Warrior's face a convenient placeholder. But even as he willed it to be true, he knew it was not – the memory was too vivid, the mannerisms too completely the Warrior of Light for Kain to be placing someone else's words in his mouth. When he pictured the slide of the Warrior's eyes, the expression of total loss that Kain was not even sure he knew he was making, he knew it could never have been anyone else.

"Perhaps you're right," he muttered, leaning forward to press his lips against the Warrior's forehead. "Forgive me, my friend. Forget I spoke."

***

Kain did not imagine that he would be able to locate Golbez unless the man wanted to be found, but still he found himself venturing farther and farther towards the northern continent, back to the places he had encountered Golbez in the past, always alone.

When Golbez did finally elect to make his appearance, Kain was only surprised by how unsurprised he was. The man did not announce himself in any way, but Kain was aware of his coming by the dark prickle that crept slowly up his spine, and he could barely suppress a shudder at the sudden flood of memories associated with the sensation.

"It's dangerous for you to be alone so deep within enemy territory," Golbez said after a pause. Kain swallowed, not turning to face him. Golbez could be more silent and still than any man Kain had ever known, and when he did not continue, Kain might have thought that he had disappeared the same way he had come, except for the dark shadow over his back.

"You have been seeking me," Golbez said when Kain didn’t speak. "Why remain silent, now that you have found me?"

In truth, Kain had only had the vaguest idea of what he’d wanted to say to Golbez, and now that he was confronted with him, all his words fled. In the end, there was only one thing he _could_ ask him. "Why?"

Golbez stirred behind him. "Did you really come all the way here to ask questions you already know the answer to?"

Kain closed his eyes, straightening his spine. Of course, there was no question of Golbez's motivation. There never had been.

"I am no longer your creature," Kain spat, finally turning to face Golbez. "If you believe the cycles -- if they even exist -- can be broken, then do it yourself."

"I am being watched," Golbez said, his voice matter-of-fact. "I am not as free in my movements as you might suppose."

"Then how is it you are here now, speaking to me?"

Golbez's head turned towards him, and again Kain had to suppress the urge to shudder. No matter how much time had passed and what understandings they had since reached, Kain could never forget what Golbez had seen within his mind and the things he had seen Kain do in the Towers – the things that Golbez had _made_ him do. He remembered, at the time, how he had dreaded the turn of Golbez's head towards him, and how sickening the fear that had clawed its way up his throat, even through the dull haze of the magic Golbez had cast over him. 

"A risk I am willing to take."

Kain swallowed. "And what makes you think we are all willing to take such risks?"

The pause that followed was so long that Kain began to wonder if Golbez intended to answer him at all. Or, perhaps, if his silence _was_ the answer to his question.

 _No,_ Kain wanted to tell him; there was no point in paying debts that Cecil himself did not even remember. _Things are different now. And we are not the same._

"Your goddess saw what was necessary," Golbez continued, either not noticing or choosing to ignore Kain's frozen stare. "But she saw it too late. The chances of you – any of you - surviving to obtain your crystals at this late stage…" Golbez did not need to complete the thought. Kain closed his eyes.

"Do you really think you warriors of Cosmos can overcome?" Golbez asked after a moment of silence. "Cosmos chooses whom she will, but often her choices are far from wise."

" _You_ speak to me of weakness?" Kain asked, anger rising in his throat. "You, of all men?"

If the jab had hit a sore spot with Golbez, nothing in his reaction showed it. "Perhaps you are right," he said, half-turning away from Kain. "Perhaps neither of us is in any position to talk to the other of weaknesses."

Kain narrowed his eyes. For a moment that seemed forever locked in his mind, he saw Cecil knocked down before him and felt dark claws hook into his mind, heard a voice that repeated _kill him, kill him,_ over and over while his body refused to move in for the final blow. He swallowed, pushing the memory aside. "Perhaps," he said. "But I did not carry out all that you wished."

Golbez's laugh was cold, his derision somehow clearly conveyed even through the black mask of his helmet. "If you wish to attribute that to your own strength, then so be it. Did you have the strength to face him later, to attempt to atone for what you'd done?"

The words hit Kain like a slap in the face. "I atoned – "

"You ran away." Golbez's voice was mild, but Kain could hear something vicious waiting just behind it. "Of what use were you to Cecil up a mountain, alone, waiting for redemption to come to you?"

Kain turned away from him. Had he truly taken the easy way out? He could not bring himself to believe it; to allow himself to be a part of Rosa and Cecil's lives after everything that he had done was unthinkable. Even if they had forgiven him – and he had had no doubt they would – what had occurred would always be there between them: the memories of Rosa's screams in the Tower of Zot; of how, time and time again, he had betrayed them, unable even to keep his mind his own. He had done the right thing – he had taken himself away from them and gone to find the strength he had lost on Mount Ordeals.

"You're wrong," Kain managed to get out, his voice thick. "I had no other choice. I did what was right."

"Did you?" Golbez may have shrugged. It was difficult to tell beneath the enormous pauldrons he wore. "Then perhaps I was correct in my first assessment of you. Perhaps you _are_ strong enough to do what needs to be done here." Golbez paused, looking at him. “You are not my creature, as you say. Choose your road -- and your allies -- as you see fit.”

For a moment, Kain thought he detected mockery in Golbez's voice, but when he turned the words over in his mind again, they sounded sincere. Anger boiled up in him. To be here, once again, playing mind games with the man who had taken his life from him brought bile bubbling to the back of his throat. The self-disgust that always lay coiled in the pit of his stomach unwound, spurred on by the fury that blossomed in his chest.

 _You are not my creature._ Golbez's words ran though his mind. Had he ever truly broken free of the yoke that Golbez had placed around his neck all those years ago? He had tried so hard to tell himself that he was a free man now, he did as he wished and could seek redemption in the way he saw fit. It had been his choice to go to Mount Ordeals to recover himself, to make himself worthy to look Cecil – to look _Rosa_ – in the eye again.

Kain swung towards where Golbez had last stood, holding his lance in front of him. _I will allow you to test my strength, if that is what you wish_ , he thought, but found himself looking into empty space. Golbez had vanished as silently as he had come, leaving Kain alone in the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much as always to Poisonstrawberries, Glynnis and Apathy for all their help and beta efforts :)
> 
>  **NOTE:** This chapter is why it's rated M: some sex, some violence, and Cecil fans may find it a little upsetting :/

Kain knew he'd find the Warrior of Light within this gateway. It was one of the few that remained uncleared on the southern continent, the manikins repelling every attempt with the sheer weight of their numbers. It had bothered the Warrior that there was such a nest of them so close to Cosmos' throne, but every time he'd suggested going to clear it out, he'd come up against Lighting's belligerent refusal.

 _Are you insane?_ she'd asked, eyes blazing. _Learn when to beat a tactical retreat, for fuck's sake._

If he'd been in a better mood, Kain might have smiled at the irony.

He hated these strange spaces within the gateways; familiar and unfamiliar both, they unnerved him. He assumed they were all facsimiles of places from his comrades' and enemies' homeworlds – not, he supposed, that he could call the Lunar Surface his home. With a cold stab in his heart, Kain wondered if he would have preferred to see the clear, blue sky of Baron, even if he knew it would be no more than an illusion. He wondered if he would ever see it again.

Occasionally Kain would watch Cecil gazing across the Lunar Surface's grey and white planes, and he wondered if it recalled any of his friend’s lost memories to mind, this place where his father's people had entered their ancient slumber. Kain didn't know what reason the gods had for creating duplicates of these places, but to him it felt like one further mockery, to find themselves suddenly hopeful, in a place that was home and yet not home....

This world was a place where hope felt like madness half the time.

Kain grit his teeth. The air here was stale and smelled filthy, with a strange metallic tang. It reminded him all too much of the Towers, the scenes of his other betrayals. The atmosphere here felt just as unnatural, and it reeked of unsavoury things.

Kain had known the Warrior of Light would not take the group's refusal to follow him into the gateway as a good enough reason to stay away from it. And sure enough, he had found him here, wandering the strange metal corridors, alone as he always seemed to be when he was not travelling with Kain.

"My friend. You're unscathed." Kain hadn't been able to keep the tinge of relief from his voice. Golbez had told him to choose his allies; Kain wondered if he had realised as he said it that the choices were far from open. In the end, it was not really a choice at all. There was no-one else Kain would want by his side in this. And – the thought came to him unbidden and more cruelly than he wanted it to – no-one else who might view what he had in mind as an acceptable price to pay for victory.

Kain had thought about what he would say, how he would attempt to convey Golbez's words. The Warrior had listened to him in silence, as he had known he would. Kain could almost see the Warrior turning the words over in his mind, coldly analytical, almost to the point of brutality. _Who were you?_ Kain thought, not for the first time.

"How did you discover these… cycles?" he finally asked, his eyes flicking back to Kain's face.

Kain swallowed. "Golbez told me it was so." He watched the Warrior of Light's eyes narrow. "I knew him… before," he said.

The Warrior looked at him and blinked. "You trust him?"

Kain almost laughed, thinking of the tangle of history that bound them together, the debt they owed Cecil and the redemption that they both sought. _Trust_ did not come into it. "The man is Cecil's brother. I find it hard to believe he wishes him any harm. It's mere chance that they find themselves on opposite sides of this conflict." It was not a lie. Not wholly.

A small furrow appeared between the Warrior's eyebrows, and he turned away slightly as if in thought. Kain wondered if brotherly bonds were a convincing argument for him. The loyalty he knew of was related only to Cosmos and Chaos. The idea that a warrior of Chaos may aid the enemy for the sake of familial love… Kain wondered what the Warrior made of the idea.

With bitter clarity, Kain realised that love was not something he was convinced the Warrior understood at all. The things it could drive a man to do or, similarly, what its absence might cost. Beneath his helm, he blinked his eyes ruthlessly shut. What it had cost him, in the end.

Kain swallowed, feeling his mouth move and the words he had rehearsed leave his throat. The words were heavy in his mouth and hollow in his ears, as if the weakness he feared had always ringed his heart was obvious in every syllable. Even so, the underlying substance of the matter was the same.  _Join me. Or tell me that I am mad._

Kain honestly couldn't tell if whatever rationale he was spouting was some form of confession or not, only that he found himself taking seriously the idea that this could be something they shared. If love did not drive the Warrior, then perhaps common purpose would. Perhaps the light the Warrior so often spoke of could come to rest on this proposal – perhaps he would see bravery and not cowardice; strength, and not the weakness that haunted the edges of Kain's life, poised to strike.

_Join me._

_This is a choice between dark and utter dark_ , Kain kept thinking as explanations coursed through the air, not wanting, necessarily, to think of what type of man it would make him if he were wrong.  

_Or tell me that I am mad._

Of course, the real question was:  _do you trust me?_ It was this answer, more than some weighing of tactical advantage, that made his tongue seem to swell in his mouth.

Kain had no doubt he would remember the way his last question coated his tongue: final, punctuated, thick-tasting. "What say you, friend?"

The Warrior’s answer surprised him.

“Yes, Kain,” was all he said.

***

The wind caught them in its teeth as they emerged from the gateway, piercing through armour and clothing, sending needles of rain straight down to the skin. The river churned white against the shoreline, sending salt spray into the air; the Warrior gestured at Kain before turning to lead the way to the lee of the grey corridor of the mountains.

Kain pulled his head down towards his chest against the storm. His eyes stayed steady on the hem of the Warrior of Light's cape where it whipped the back of his legs, weighed down with mud and rain, the material dented against the heavy Barbarian's Sword the Warrior had taken to carrying strapped to his back.

He realised, there in the dim light of the fading sun, that he'd almost been wanting the Warrior of Light to tell him that Golbez's words could not be believed, that Golbez was an agent of Chaos and Kain was a fool to place any trust whatsoever in anything the man had to tell him. The Warrior had not demurred when Kain had suggested that he be the one to put their allies to sleep before the manikins could hunt them down. Again, Kain thought of that quick nod, the gaze that held his without sign of misgiving or doubt. _If you think that would be best._

Away from the wind, the rain lost its sting, petering out almost to nothing. The rocky ground finally gave way to earth.

The Warrior turned to face him, and for once, Kain found his face totally unreadable. "We should pitch a tent."

Kain swallowed, the familiar warm coil already beginning to wind in his belly; he knew there were things to discuss, a conversation that should not be delayed, but he could not bring himself to think on them right now. He did not respond to the Warrior of Light's suggestion that they make camp; he did not want to talk anymore or formulate plans or think about what lay ahead of him. _I'll do it. It should be me._ He had said it, and he could not take it back. In his mind's eye, he could only see the Warrior nodding and saying, _If you think that would be best,_ his eyes steady, not betraying even a glimmer of uncertainty. Kain almost raised a hand to his face as if to wipe the image away, but in the end he simply closed his eyes.

"Kain?"

Kain hauled in a breath and opened his eyes. "I heard you."

The wind, weaker than it had been, whipped his hair over his shoulder when he removed his helm, tangling it with grit.

The tent did not do much against the wind, but at least it kept the sand and the salt out. The darkness was quick to descend, and if the Warrior was concerned about manikins or Chaos warriors finding them here in this isolated place, Kain didn't intend to give him the chance to say so.

The Warrior had never seemed to mind anything that Kain had asked of him; now, as Kain wound his fingers around the Warrior's wrist and pushed him onto his back, he barely made a sound, even when his head knocked against the floor of the tent. Kain had learned that was simply his way; in spite of his seeming passivity, his hands when they came up to pull at the straps of Kain's armour were impatient to get it off him, and his mouth opened to Kain's ungentle kiss.

Kain could taste the river's salt and sandy grit on the Warrior's lips, cold from the freezing wind that still chilled him to the bone. His mouth was warm around Kain's tongue, though, and he tasted as clean as he always did, as if the dirt of the outside air couldn't touch him. Kain opened his mouth wider, his fingers tangling in the Warrior's damp hair and his thumb running over his jaw.

His own heartbeat rang loud in his ears, loud enough for once to drown out his thoughts, to clear his head of everything but this. Kain's fingers never shook before a battle, but they shook now as he began the process of unbuckling the Warrior's armour, tearing it off him, as if by removing it he could strip away whatever wordless gulf lay between them, _make_ the Warrior understand him in the way that Kain suspected – perhaps feared - he never truly had.

In the end, he thought bitterly, the Warrior was too assured of his place in the world, too convinced of what he had to do, to ever understand. It had been the same with Cecil, for all Cecil's doubts and uncertainties. They had never been lost or lonely in that way; Cecil may have needed the push of the disaster he had caused at Mist to find his way, but he had found it all the same, effortlessly moving away from who he had been in the past and the role he had played.

If the Warrior of Light was surprised by the anger in Kain's touch, he didn't show it. The cold was cutting, but Kain realised that he wanted him naked; he wanted to see him laid bare before him. Usually there was no time, no chance for such things, and even now the cramped space of the tent did not make it easy. Kain could not explain the impulse to himself, except that if he was going to give his life away for this man's goddess, then he should at least be granted this.

 _No,_ he told himself as he released the Warrior of Light's wrist long enough to pull his black tunic over his head before allowing him to fall back against the ground, _not for her. For him._ But in the moment that followed, he realised he didn't know exactly whether _him_ meant the Warrior of Light or Cecil Harvey, and the realisation made his breath stall in his throat. He closed his eyes, desolation sweeping up his chest, all but killing the desire that had burned so brightly in him just moments before.

It was better not to think. It was better to bury himself in heat and movement, and to pretend everything was as simple and easy as this, to watch the soft corrugation of the Warrior's ribs rise and fall with his breath. Kain could not help but sit back for a moment and wonder what the Warrior saw when he looked at him: a friend, or simply another instrument in Cosmos' war? Despite everything, he could not bring himself to believe that all they had done meant nothing to the Warrior, but still, he hesitated, looking down at the man beneath him with as close to ambivalence as he had ever come.

After a moment or two, the Warrior opened his eyes and sat up. He slid himself up from between Kain's knees, his hands going to Kain's tasset, his eyes lowered. Kain sucked in a breath when he realised what the Warrior intended – perhaps he'd misunderstood Kain's hesitation and thought that this was what he had been waiting for. Kain barely had time to register the cold on his skin before the Warrior dipped his head and his mouth was on him, encircling him in heat and softness. Kain grit his teeth and threw his head back with a low groan, letting warmth claw its way up his spine, soft but brutal, and almost too much to bear. Swallowing, he forced himself to open his eyes, to look down at the curve of the Warrior's spine, the skin of his back white against the darkness, the rise and fall of his head, the sound of his lips against Kain's skin.

Unable to stop himself he thrust up, breath hitching, feeling the warm, yielding press of the Warrior's throat against him. Cold air filled his mouth as he struggled for breath, feeling that familiar bloom in his groin as the Warrior dragged his mouth back up along him, his tongue trailing his lips. The Warrior glanced up at him then, as if to gauge if this was what Kain wanted, and for some reason the sight of his eyes, so clear and so steady, was more than Kain could bear.

Reaching down, Kain put his hands on either side of the Warrior's face and pulled him up before he had the chance to slide back down. He could taste himself in the Warrior's mouth, and his fingers still shook as he unlaced the Warrior's tasset, pulling the heavy sheets of armour away from him. As good as it had felt, finishing in the Warrior's mouth was not what he wanted from him. It would not be enough this time.

The Warrior drew a sharp breath when Kain pushed him back, running the tips of his fingers over the groove where thigh met hip; Kain could not suppress a shudder when he finally raised his eyes to the Warrior of Light's face and saw the same blank acceptance he always saw there. Just this once, it was of no comfort to him – he would have found it better to know that the Warrior of Light shared, or at least understood, the clawing desperation that had settled in the pit of Kain's stomach, his fear and revulsion at what he must do. But it was simply not there, as Kain had known it wouldn't be – he doubted it would be there even if their roles in this scheme were reversed.

He could not look at him anymore; within the confines of the tent, Kain crawled over him, hooking the back of the Warrior's knee into his elbow. The Warrior hissed out a breath when Kain pushed into him, arching his back against him, but Kain could not bring himself to stop or slow his pace once he had started. He could feel that warm, insistent ache already beginning to pool in his groin, his nerve endings already overwhelmed by the throb of the Warrior's body around him, seeming to try to pull him in deeper with every thrust. The Warrior's breath, warm against Kain's throat, hitched as he changed angles, deepening his strokes, and he felt the Warrior's hands come up, digging into the coiled muscle of his back, his short nails cutting stinging crescents into his skin.

Kain buried his face against the Warrior's throat, feeling his pulse fast and strong against his lips, and closed his eyes, trying to block out everything but the tight heat that held him and drew him down, the warmth of the body below his, the soft song that ran down the network of his nerves. Despite himself he quickened his pace once more, wanting this to last but wanting it to be over, and felt the Warrior tighten around him in response. The sensation shot through him and he groaned, unable to stop himself, lifting his head from where it rested and finally looking the Warrior of Light in the face: his eyes were closed, his bottom lip drawn back into his mouth, the muscles of his neck cording against his skin. He let out a ragged groan every time Kain sank into him, every one driving Kain closer to the edge, until finally he felt that all-too-familiar pull gathering behind his groin, the dull roar in his ears that seemed to cut off all his other senses, overwhelming him, shaking him down to his bones.

Kain lay against the Warrior's chest – he wasn't sure how long. The cold on his back had become almost unbearable by the time he moved again, curling against the Warrior's back, realising he'd been selfish and sliding his hand over the curve of his stomach, reaching between his legs.

The Warrior turned his head, his lips grazing the side of Kain's face. "Don't," he said, catching Kain's hand. "It doesn't matter."

Kain felt the Warrior begin to move away and tightened his grip around his waist, almost saying _Don't go,_ before swallowing the words back down, closing them into his heart.

Despite Kain's hold, the Warrior of Light sat up, and Kain heard him rustling through a pack before feeling the drape of a blanket over his shoulder.

"I'll take the first watch," the Warrior said, and then he heard the clink of armour as the Warrior began to dress.

"Wake me," he muttered, not opening his eyes, before hearing the flap of the tent being drawn back and the Warrior moving out into the night.

***

The dawn was only just breaking across the sky when Kain awoke.

He blinked in the half-light, the freezing air dragging him from his sleep. When he inhaled, he felt the ice in the air crawl its way through his lungs. The cold was merciless, beyond anything he could recall having experienced before.

Even the daybreak appeared a pale imitation, a feeble white light in the greying sky, too weak to burn away the mist that hung over the mountains and the deep black river.

_Daybreak…_

The sudden pulse of adrenaline as he realised the hour was enough to drive him to his feet, grab his lance and crawl quickly from the tent. He had not meant to sleep the whole night. He’d missed his watch….

"Did you sleep your fill?"

Kain swallowed at the sound of the Warrior's voice, the tension leaching from his muscles, replaced with the slow burn of anger.

”You were supposed to wake me for my watch."

"You required the sleep."

Kain snorted derisively, but his anger was already beginning to turn inwards – all his years of sleeping in shifts and he had still managed to sleep the whole night through. His anger died in his throat, and the rebuke that left his lips sounded sheepish and half-willed. "And you didn’t?"

The Warrior of Light didn't reply. Kain turned towards where he sat, arms crossed over his chest, hands tucked under his cloak, his sword in front of him. There was frost on the blade, beginning to bead into dew in the growing light. Despite the fact he was evidently awake, his eyes were closed, and Kain could see the dark rings that seemed to hollow the skin below them.

"And you expect me to carry you back to Sanctuary while you doze on your feet?" Kain asked, feeling cruel even as he said it but too angry with himself to care.

The Warrior opened his eyes, blinking in the grey light. "I expect nothing –"

Kain stopped him with a wave of his hand. "Forgive me. I spoke harshly," he muttered, cold and exhaustion making anger impossible to sustain, even if he had wanted to. Instead, he exhaled, watching his breath escape him, white in the freezing air. "I'm afraid I am… ungracious this early in the morning."

The Warrior of Light simply blinked at him again, seeming neither hurt nor angered by his words, nor at his hollow attempt to diffuse them. "Don’t let it trouble you. You need the rest. You'll be thankful for it."

The weight of what the Warrior had left unspoken seemed to bend the air between them. "I know," Kain muttered, turning his face away and looking out to where the sun had finally broken free of the horizon, turning the deep water of the river from black to grey.

No amount of sleep ever seemed enough in this place – his eyes felt bleary and he thought his face must look haggard. Without another word to the Warrior, Kain jerked his freezing muscles to action, walking down to the river where it rose and fell against the shore. The shallows, at least, were crystal clear, washing fragments of rock and grains of sand against one another.

He dipped his hands into the water, lifting it and running it over his face, scrubbing the last remnants of sleep from his eyes and brain. The Warrior of Light had been correct, as he always seemed to be in his inexorable way – he would need all the rest he could get for the upcoming task.

There were not so many of their comrades; they trusted him and were not likely to be on their guard. To strike from behind, that should be the way of it – it might even be kinder to them in the end to spare them the knowledge that they had been betrayed. Kain had had a lifetime to harden himself to the idea that in war, soldiers die, every day and in great numbers, and that as their commander, it was his duty to send them to their deaths. In the past, Baron had never flinched from throwing its peasantry into the rank and file of its armies when the need had arisen, people who didn't know and cared less about what they were fighting for. Neither Cecil nor Kain had ever commanded any section but the professional army the castle kept, but it still did not change the fact that men had stood and died on his word. What were a few more?

He had seen friends die before.

Turning, Kain looked back at the Warrior – he had not risen, but Kain could feel his eyes on him, and he wondered briefly if he truly believed this was the correct path. If Golbez had told it true and the battles were a cycle, he wondered how many other comrades the Warrior had seen come and go over the course of the cycles, so infinitely replaceable, and he wondered how much of his faulty memory was an entirely subconscious defence mechanism. He wondered again at the girl the Warrior had told him of, whom he now seemed completely unable to remember – who she had been and what role she had played in the Warrior's life, that she had been the only fragmentary memory he had left of anything that had gone before.

Perhaps it was that which made him so placidly able to accept everything that Kain had told him – perhaps it was that which had prevented him from even attempting to dissuade Kain or to suggest they find another way. Kain closed his eyes, feeling the sunshine on his face. For a moment, he allowed his mind to wander towards other possibilities.

_Kain, no. I can't let you do that. I need –_

Kain shook his head. Better not even to imagine such things – that way lay madness, as he was only too aware. _If_ did not exist: things either were or they were not, and the Warrior of Light would have had to be a very different man to ever have spoken to Kain in that way. He had never given Kain any reason to suspect that Cosmos and his duty to her were not first in his thoughts at every turn. He could hardly accuse the Warrior of having misled him.

Looking back at him now, Kain watched the Warrior stand and begin to walk down towards him. He wondered how they had come to this point. Snatches of memory often drifted unbidden to the surface of his mind, nothing more than a whispered word, a small conversation, or one of the Warrior of Light's extremely rare smiles. They seemed to play on an endless loop, never failing to send a sharp shock of pleasure straight to his groin, but when he tried to place these memories they simply would not fit. He saw them so clearly that he could not believe they hadn't happened. If these battles were a cycle, this had all happened before. Kain wondered how it had ended then – or if he had managed to be happy in whatever time they'd had, and, moreover, why it had been _him_ , of all people, the Warrior of Light kept returning to.

He turned away slightly as the Warrior reached his side, feeling suddenly like he could not look at him.

"Kain." He closed his eyes at the sound of the Warrior's voice, almost wishing he had slipped away during the night. "I apologise for not waking you."

Kain had to smile, though there was little humour in it. The Warrior of Light was getting better at form, if not content, and for a moment he was almost overwhelmed with the kind of dangerous, inexplicable affection he'd spent a lifetime trying to bury within himself.

"I appreciate the thought," Kain said, knowing that, if nothing else, the Warrior had meant it kindly. "And you were right. Evidently, I needed the sleep."

For a moment, Kain watched the small waves break on the shore, knowing that they could no longer delay the conversation. If they had decided last night inside the gateway that he would be the one to take their friends down, that was as far as they had gotten before Kain had curtailed the discussion. The wind blew his hair back from his face, the cold air stinging his eyes. He heard the clink of the Warrior's armour as he shifted slightly beside him.

"Kain –"

Kain closed his eyes and almost answered him, before turning to him, willing him to be silent and pressing his mouth to his lips. He pushed his hands into the space between the high neck of his armour and the back of his head, coiling his fingers through his hair. The Warrior's armour was hard and freezing cold against his chest, but his mouth, when he opened it, was as warm as it had been the night before, his tongue soft as it moved against Kain's own, drawing Kain out of himself and tightening his chest with longing. He found the small space above the Warrior's hip that was not covered by his armour and pressed his fingers into it, pulling him closer and ignoring the sharp edges of his cuirass digging into his skin.

 _Don't say anything,_ Kain almost wanted to tell him. _We need not speak of it. We can find another way._ But in the end, he knew it was futile, and the Warrior of Light shifted away from him, giving him a mildly puzzled look before running a gloved hand over his shoulder, as if in a gesture of comfort.

"Kain," he said, half-turning away and waiting for Kain to follow him back up to the tent. "I don't want to delay you."

In the end, it was relatively simple – Kain would hunt their allies while the Warrior moved slightly ahead of him, clearing a path through the manikins that might hinder him, distracting any Chaos warriors that might pick up his scent and give chase. It would be exhausting work – the manikins could never entirely be disposed of and Kain would have to contend with them, no matter how many the Warrior of Light removed from his path.

They would catch up with each other in two days' time in the ruins of the castle in the Melmond Fens, in the hope that the marshy ground would deter either their allies or their enemies from venturing too deep to find them. They knew the places in which their allies tended to camp – against all of Kain's and Lightning's exhortations that they move around more so as to not provide easy pickings for their enemies – and where they were most likely to be, near uncleared gateways and easy shelter.

"I can cut back through the Cornelia Plains," the Warrior said, looking up from the miniature sketch of the continents that Kain had drawn in the earth between them. "If the path is clear, it will be easy to circle back to Order's Sanctuary."

Kain looked up sharply and was unsuccessful in suppressing his short, surprised breath.

"I would need to explain to her what we are doing," the Warrior of Light said in response to the unasked question, his eyes not leaving Kain's face. "Otherwise she may think that we –"

The Warrior cut himself off there, and Kain completed the thought himself -- _that we have betrayed her_ \-- and realised that the Warrior had blanched from even suggesting the possibility of such a thing aloud. Lowering his head, he nodded, not trusting his voice enough to speak.

It could be laid out like this, as a cold-blooded strategy of war, and Kain could almost make himself believe that was all it was – just another plan that he could enact the same way he had so many times in the past, for men he did not trust and in the service of causes far less worthy than this. They sat in silence for a short time once the planning was done; Kain could not look up for fear of the expression – or the lack of one – he would find on the Warrior of Light's face, the air between them thick.

"I should go," he eventually said, suddenly desperate to be on his way. If he were to do this thing, it would be better to get it underway sooner rather than later; every second they delayed was one second more an ally could be lost. One second more in which he might lose his nerve.

He half-stood, already turning to go, when he felt the Warrior of Light's gloved hand close around his wrist. "Kain. Wait."

Kain turned in surprise, his heart thumping in his chest. The Warrior was looking up at him from where he sat, and Kain could see the line of thought creasing between his eyebrows. "I wanted – " The Warrior cut himself off, swallowing. Kain turned to face him fully, crouching down before him.

The Warrior blinked, and Kain could see something akin to confusion in his eyes as he looked up, turning Kain's hand over in his own. Kain's first instinct was to curl his fingers closed, to hide the mark that Cecil had made on his hand all those years ago, but with effort he resisted, allowing the Warrior to run his fingers over the pale scar on his palm.

"I know it's no easy thing you do," the Warrior began, his voice sounding so uncharacteristically hesitant that Kain almost drew back. "But you do it for good reasons, Kain."

Kain's first impulse was derision, but he found that anything he might have said died before it ever left his lips. Instead, he sat as if frozen, allowing the Warrior to continue moving his fingers over his palm in a way that somehow suggested both tenderness and detachment, like a scientist studying a treasured specimen.

"You told me that you got this swearing an oath to someone once," he finally said. "I don't remember if I ever did likewise, to anyone. But to swear to see this through – I'd give you my oath for that," he finished, looking up into Kain's face.

Kain’s throat went dry, his mind unable to form the words he knew he wanted. The hard wall he'd decided that he must build between himself and the Warrior if he was to remain sane throughout this endeavour chipped slightly. Was it possible, after all, that the Warrior _did_ understand? That he wore his mask so completely that even Kain had been unable to penetrate it? He swallowed and ran his tongue over his lips. "What oath would you swear?"

He watched as the Warrior's forehead creased a little. "To be your shield," he eventually said. Kain closed his eyes, his breath sounding very loud in his chest. "To protect you while you end this. I swear that I won't fail you."

“So sworn.” Kain completed the oath-taking words automatically, even though he knew there was no way the Warrior could know how to complete the phrase.

The Warrior paused, blinking through a flash of confusion. “So sworn,” he repeated, and Kain almost winced at the incorrect response.

 _So witnessed_ , he mentally corrected, but the words were close enough, perhaps, for now.

He could not bring himself to look up at the Warrior's face as he slowly slid his glove from his hand.

The Warrior didn't make a sound as Kain pressed the blade of his lance down on his palm, hard enough to break the skin but gently enough so as not to leave a gash. Kain hesitated a moment, his left hand hovering over the blade, before passing the lance across and curling his right hand around it, just above the white scar that still remained from his stupid, childish oath to Cecil. Ironically, the oath he swore now, not to falter while he methodically removed his friends from battle, was far closer to the principles he had thought he would be upholding the day he had become a dragoon and Cecil a Dark Knight. Laying his lance to one side, he pressed their palms together, interlacing their fingers and watching the thin ribbon of red that ran down his wrist.

Kain closed his eyes, feeling the Warrior's pulse throb against his palm. For a moment, he imagined that he was back in the forest where he had been that day with Cecil and that this was the beginning of his life, his choices not yet made. Perhaps this would be different. Kain allowed himself an indulgent flash of hope. _Perhaps…_

When he opened his eyes again, the Warrior had the beginning of a smile on his face, something so rare that for a moment Kain was startled, before almost smiling back.

"For Cosmos," the Warrior said, looking up at Kain, the smile finally breaking the surface.

It was Kain’s turn to repeat something he didn’t quite believe. He tried to keep his voice as level as possible over the sudden rush of blood in his ears. Without mercy, he crushed a bitter laugh that threatened him from whatever mixture of apprehension and duty swirled in his stomach.

“For Cosmos.”

***

The cold had lifted somewhat, but the rain, it seemed, had settled in for the long term. The earth turned to mud beneath his tread, slowing him down but at least making tracking easier. Occasionally, Kain passed the shattered remains of manikins, still smoking and sizzling in the rain. Whatever the Warrior of Light did, he did thoroughly, and more often than not the shattered pieces were completely unrecognisable as something that had once looked roughly human.

Sometimes Kain would come across half of an expressionless, crystalline face, white eyes staring blankly at the sky, filling with rain. If he recognised them from what was left, he would name them -- _Yuna_ , _Bartz_ , _Lightning_ , _Cecil_ \-- and move on. At first it had been unnerving, fighting these inhuman facsimiles of friends and allies, but they all had eventually learned to close their hearts to it. Now, even as he put their names to their faces, it was as if he did not see them; with every face and every name, Kain retreated further from them, and eventually it seemed that he was doing nothing more than reciting nonsense words without meaning, without attachments.

The rain may have fallen steadily, but the mud was thick enough that footprints held their shape for some time after they had been made. The path he had chosen would take him around the mountain range and through the marshy outer land of the fens. There was only one set of tracks, discounting the Warrior of Light's – the stride too short and too light and the pace too fast to be Firion, weighed down as he was with every weapon he could get his hands on; too big to be the Onion Knight; and he knew that it would be a rare thing to find either Bartz or Zidane on their own. Squall wore boots with a tread that Kain had never seen before, and this was not it. Lightning was too fast and too light to have made them, Yuna too slow and her step too delicate.

There was detachment in these guessing games; he knew to whom the tracks belonged, had known from the first minute he began following them through the dark morass of the mud. It couldn't have been anyone else. Kain was too familiar with everything about Cecil to ever have mistaken his footprints for anyone else's; they had trained together since they were boys, following each other through the woods that surrounded Baron Castle, when the sunshine trickled down between the needles of the pines and everything had seemed green and gold.

Despite the fact that Kain had been taller and stronger than him for as long as he could remember, Cecil had almost always won the arm wrestle to determine who would be the deer and who the hunter, and Cecil had always chosen deer. Kain could not have mistaken his tracks for anyone else's, even in this desolate place that was as far removed from the forests of his home as the moon was from the blue planet. Cecil had been too good at the game, and more often than not it had ended with him emerging from the ferns, laughing at Kain for failing to find him within the time limit and picking dried pine needles out of his hair.

Kain wondered if it would be the same now and he would fail to find him and would return to the Melmond Fens with nothing to report. But the rules of the game had changed now. In those days, Cecil had known Kain was hunting him.

"Kain?"

He heard his voice before he saw him. Twilight was only just beginning to descend, the last of the sun's red glimmer dying on the horizon. Kain closed his eyes, letting the ice that he had been steadily collecting in his heart spread throughout his body, freezing out emotion, freezing out memories.

"I knew someone was following, but I didn’t realise it was you," Cecil said, emerging from the growing darkness, looking as bedraggled as Kain had ever seen him, mud spattered across the gleaming white of his paladin armour and his hair damp from the rain.

"Cecil," Kain said, and, somehow, even as it left his lips, it did not sound like a name at all. "Are you alone?"

"I was with Firion, but he wanted to go and explore the snowfields," Cecil said, waiting a moment for Kain to draw level with him, before turning and continuing on his way.

For a moment, Kain narrowed his eyes – Cecil was leaving himself so open to an attack that he was momentarily suspicious, until he remembered that Cecil had no reason to suspect him of anything; even if he had had his memories, he had easily trusted Kain again even after two betrayals. There was no reason that he would be any different now.

A part of Kain had always cleaved desperately to the notion that Rosa belonged more with him than she ever had with Cecil. Cecil would be a fine man regardless of Rosa's presence in his life, but Kain had _needed_ her – if only she had chosen him, he would never have been capable of such things as he had done.

Kain had always thought, privately, that he had had more faith in Rosa's strength than Cecil ever had. While Cecil had never stopped short of actually ordering Rosa to remain behind when he went to fight, Kain remembered her putting arrow after arrow into the dead centre of her target, moving or still, and watching the almost liquid tendrils of magic that moved between her fingers when she healed, a skill invaluable on the battlefield.

Perhaps, in the end, that had been where the problem truly lay -- Kain had seen it in her eyes after the Tower of Zot; where Cecil had flatly refused to believe that Kain, having broken free of Golbez's influence, could possibly betray them again, Rosa had watched him, her mouth repeating Cecil's words, but her eyes so sad that Kain could scarcely stand to look at her. Kain had realised much later that again it was his weakness that had betrayed him – whatever Rosa's inclinations might have been, making him a good man was not her charge; her strength could not compensate for his weakness, nor should it. With Cecil, she could be weak; she could be exhausted; she could be human. With Kain, she could only ever have been a goddess.

In his dreams, he watched himself strike Cecil down over and over again. But at the last minute, his hand always faltered, unable to deliver the killing blow. Meagre though it had been, he had always comforted himself with the thought that, at least, in the end, he had been unable to do _that_.

It seemed so far distant, and yet it all seemed so familiar.

The air was so thin, it seemed, almost too thin to breathe, and his vision narrowed, tunnelling down to the slice of throat between Cecil's jaw and the neck of his armour. Kain had done it a hundred times before -- a short, quick thrust there was the easiest way to kill a man, provided that your blade did not get stuck in the bone of his spine and you drew back quickly enough to face the next enemy. But here, there was no one else, only him and Cecil, surrounded by the deepening shadow of the night closing in around them.

 _Get it done. Better that it's done quickly._ He knew, if he allowed himself to think any further, his nerve would fail him, the dreamlike state he’d drifted into lost.

Kain's left arm felt heavy, as if it were being weighed down by the lance in his hand. Cecil was still talking quietly, seeming totally oblivious. As his lance shot forward, Kain had time to think, _You never do know when to shut up, do you, Cecil?_

He had been expecting to feel the sickening resistance of flesh and bone jolt down his arm. It was almost a worse shock when his lance sliced through only the empty air, as Cecil, perhaps intuiting something or perhaps simply by chance, moved his head aside at the last moment. The blade of Kain's lance shot through his hair, missing the side of his neck and the artery therein by the merest of margins.

In the darkness, Cecil stumbled back, shock making him clumsy; it was the only time Kain could ever remember him actually clumsy. "Kain? What – "

Even if he had been inclined to answer him, Kain found that he had no voice and no thoughts to form the words. There was only the lance in his hand and the shortest trajectory it would have to take to hit home.

It had always been like that, when they were sparring as children and later as soldiers. If Cecil had always found a way to interplay the dark magic he commanded and the strike of his sword, for Kain, there had only ever been a series of short, sharp lines for his body and his blade to follow.

Kain knew Cecil well, knew that he always seemed to have a blind spot for low hews to his left side and that an elbow injury had made him weaker to overhead strikes. He'd used them to his advantage so many times when they were sparring, to the point that Rosa had only half-jokingly accused him of bad sportsmanship. Kain remembered he'd laughed at that, as if there could be any such thing in a standing fight.

He watched for those signs even now, as he felt his muscles coil like a spring, ready to strike while Cecil was still off his guard. This was all a game, after all, wasn't it? They had fought like this a thousand times, fought to exhaustion, too breathless even to laugh by the end. Then they'd sat back-to-back in the fading sunlight, talking about what they would do when their battles were real.

"Kain," Cecil's voice cut through the haze of his memories, and in the moment before he struck forward again, Kain saw a thin trickle of blood down the side of his face, where the blade of his lance had landed a glancing blow in what should have been Cecil's neck. _First blood,_ he could not help but think. _I've won._

"Kain, I don't understand. Listen to me – "

Kain didn't answer him – what was there to say? – and Cecil was only just fast enough to parry his next blow. Kain could feel the weakness, the hesitation behind it. He was expecting a riposte, but none came. He stepped back, thrown off his guard: Cecil had always been quick, far quicker than Kain, but now his movements seemed almost sluggish. When Kain pressed forward again, he could feel the fragility of Cecil's guard.

 _Fight, curse you,_ Kain wanted to scream at him. Again, Cecil parried weakly, letting Kain close enough to see the sweat beading on his forehead, failed to close fast enough to prevent Kain from sweeping through the opening, and moved only just quickly enough to evade what would have been a killing thrust.

Cecil had never, ever let him win their sparring matches – it had always been a tacit agreement that they would not hold back, and Kain could not understand why Cecil would not meet him blow for blow now, as he always had done in the past. They were evenly matched, the two of them. Cecil was always fast and elegant, his parries and ripostes balanced and deft. He had admired the way Cecil used a sword, but Kain knew that he could not be matched with a spear and had come to favour of it over anything else, as cumbersome as it could be in close-range combat. Kain had overcome the lance's limitations and made the weapon his own. Cecil could keep his elegant swordplay.

Now, Kain could barely believe he was fighting the same man. Cecil was giving ground so easily, his face only just now beginning to harden into the mask of concentration that Kain knew so well.

The marshy ground was slippery below him, but he was sure enough on his feet not to mind; he watched as one of Cecil's feet slid out from under him, and he pressed the advantage with a vicious overhead blow to Cecil's weak side that almost crumpled his arm, Kain's blade coming within inches of his face.

_I drew first blood. I've already won._

"Please, Kain." It may have been mistaken as a plea coming from someone else, but Kain could hear the warning behind Cecil's words. _Perhaps now the match can truly begin._

And sure enough, there it was – Cecil's next block had none of the feebleness of his previous ones, and the shock of hitting it sent unpleasant reverberations up Kain's arm and into his shoulder. Cecil parried with the swiftness Kain had always seen in him before, and he swung low with a blow that would have caught Kain in the thigh had he been a hair's breadth quicker.

A smile twitched at Kain's lips. This was what he knew, what he remembered. The rules of this game were clear and easy. His pride in the knowledge of what he had always suspected – that Cecil was good, but he was better – surged through him, strengthening his arm and steeling his resolve.

Despite this, the next swing that Cecil made sailed over his guard, the edge of his sword embedding itself in the leather of the high neck of his armour, catching in the mail beneath. It would have been mortal had the angle been just slightly higher, the blow slightly stronger. For half a moment, Kain looked up, Cecil's face close to his own, his forehead creased in concentration, his eyes seemingly empty. It was not the familiar blue eyes of his friend that Kain saw, but the cold, almost distant expression of a capable and experienced killer.

The dull ache of the blow spread slowly down through his neck and shoulder, and Kain knew this would have to be finished quickly. Cecil tried to draw his sword back, but the teeth of Kain's mail held it tight, and in the moment's hesitation it caused, Kain lifted his lance and struck Cecil in the centre of his chest, knocking him back.

Cecil was struggling to find his balance, but it was futile; his heartbeat singing in his ears, the refrain _I've won_ repeating itself in his brain, Kain swung around, brought his spear low and thrust forward before Cecil had the chance to lower his guard.

 _You always have a blind spot on your left,_ Kain could remember telling him, time and time again after tapping him there, gently or not depending on what rules they were using, and Cecil had always laughed and said he knew and that he would work on it.

He almost opened his mouth to say it again now – more than anything, he wanted to hear Cecil laugh and promise to work on it and tell Kain that he wouldn't beat him so easily next time. It was just a game, after all – there would always be a next time.

Now, he wondered why he saw surprise in Cecil's eyes in the moment before his head dropped forward, his hair covering his face; it was an easy move, one that Kain had beaten him with in the past. It wasn't until he withdrew his lance and watched the blood spatter redly on the muddy ground that he remembered why this time was different.

Kain's breath shook in his chest as he peeled off his helm. "You can get up now," he said, waiting for Cecil to stir. He swallowed. It was beginning to rain; the first fine, frigid drops were stinging his face, growing stronger and heavier with every passing moment. His limbs felt utterly without strength, and he half-sat, half-dropped to one knee. "Please."

But Cecil, just for once, did not get up and give Kain the kind of easy smile that Kain knew made people love him, just as he'd always loved him. _No,_ he thought suddenly, letting his helm drop to the mud. _I always loved him best. No one else knew him well enough to love him like I did._

The problem, it seemed to Kain, was that love had always sat so perilously close to hate in the spectrum of his emotions that he had never been able to keep them straight in his heart. He had always loved too strongly, too dangerously, too all-consumingly. It frightened him, how much and how desperately he had loved Cecil, and consequently, how much he had hated him when the scales were just slightly tipped.

Now, as he sat in the mud and waited, Kain found his breath was choking him, thickening his throat like something living, sliding down inside him and settling there. 

The rain began to beat down, swallowing him in sound. It crept over his scalp and down the back of his neck, and he slowly leaned forward and then crawled to where Cecil lay. The mud was soft, so soft, beneath his hands, seeping below his fingernails and into the joints at the knees of his armour. Cecil rolled back when he touched him, the rain washing the muck off his face when his slack neck dropped backwards, his head settling into the crook of Kain's arm. 

Kain had no idea how long it was until he moved again – long enough that the rain had settled into a steady, soft drizzle when he lifted his head to it, his mouth parched. For a moment, he looked down at his hands and realised they were shaking, before he balled his fists, refusing to allow them to shake anymore. He had far to go before he could rest, before he could allow himself to think about what he had done. 

They had decided that the safest place for their friends would be the Mirage Sandsea; it was isolated, empty, the terrain unfriendly and ringed by mountains. Kain's neck and shoulder ached where the sword had bitten into his mail, but he forced himself to ignore the pain as he lifted Cecil in his arms and shifted him over his shoulder, the dull red smear over the back of his hand. His knees creaked when he stood, his fingers almost refusing to curl tightly enough to hold his lance. 

Despite this, as he took the first few stumbling steps forward, his thoughts rose unbidden in his mind. Even in this place, separated from Baron, from his life and circumstances there by the gods alone knew what, he knew now that the man he was – the man he had _always_ been – was truly the only thing he was capable of being, and this was what Mount Ordeals, with all its trials, had been showing him all along. He had done the very thing he had been so unable to do before, and killed his friend. 

The only thing he could be thankful for was the fact that Rosa was not here to see him now, walking alone with dark mud and Cecil's blood under his fingernails, the sweat of the fight still fresh on his throat. He could not even imagine what she would say to him – perhaps nothing. Perhaps her face would say it all. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, finally done. Family woes!
> 
> Thank you, as always, to Poisonstrawberries for all her help -- this fic owes a heavy debt to her characterisation notes and sorting through the canon we're given to work with. Thank you, thank you. 
> 
> Super huge thanks also to Glynnis, who raked out my crap grammar and typoes despite the fact I can't punctuate to save my life. All mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Thank you to Apathy for read-throughs and listening to me complain XD

The mud sucked at his feet as he walked, draining him of strength, threatening to pull him down into the mire. For a moment, Kain almost stopped and was tempted to simply allow his exhaustion to take him over, but in the end he kept moving forward, allowed the world to shrink to the space directly in front of him, the raindrops that clung to the dragon's teeth of his helm.

The light from Order's Sanctuary could be seen, glowing dully through the haze of the rainstorm, rising above the mountains like smoke over a pyre. Kain felt warm bile rise in the back of his throat, and turned his face away.

_For Cosmos._

The sneer crossed his lips before he could stop it. He wondered if Cosmos could see him now, if she cared to, and what she would think of one of her chosen warriors trudging through the rain and the muck, his hands covered in the blood of his friend – as they would be covered with the blood of so many others before this business was over.

Wetness trickled down the back of Kain's neck, sweat or the storm, and he realised again that his hands were shaking. Even when guided by Golbez’s spells, they had been sure, steady, the one thing to never betray him… but now, it seemed no matter what he did, they trembled. Even clenching them into fists did nothing, so instead he let them shake, too tired to care.

The rain had begun to ease by the time Kain made his way to the fens; the sky was almost completely dark, the dense shadow of the castle ruins impenetrable.

Kain paused on the threshold, for the moment unable to make himself take even one step more. The dull strings of dread that had been slowly gathering in his chest knotted into the sickening knowledge that the Warrior of Light would ask him what he had done, and that he would have to tell him.

Closing his eyes, Kain could feel the blood pound in his temples and wondered, almost inanely, what he would not give for some skill at magecraft, for the ability to slow the passage of time, if only for a moment or two. To gather his thoughts, perhaps… or perhaps just to mourn.

 _Cecil._ Kain could not be sure if he uttered the name aloud or not. He might have. _Forgive me. Please, I…_

"Kain?"

Kain reached out, leaning heavily against the cold stone wall, all that remained of what he assumed had once been a castle not unlike the one in which he'd been raised. He swallowed, but could not find it in himself to lift his head.

"I'm here," he said, his voice cracking in his throat. He heard the Warrior's steps in the mud behind him and knew that eventually he would have to turn and face him. There was nowhere to hide, if there ever had been.

"Kain. Are you all right?"

Drawing in a breath, Kain pushed himself away from the wall, finally turning to face the Warrior of Light.

"I'm not wounded, no."

Kain watched the Warrior blink, his eyes running over him as if trying to assess that for himself. "I'm glad," he said. "An injury would slow us down."

Kain almost had to laugh at that; as it was, a cruel smile worked its way over his lips as he answered. "Indeed it would, my friend. Indeed it would."

The Warrior's brow furrowed at that; Kain could almost see the gears of his mind click over until they seemed to find something that fit. "Did you –"

Kain cut him off with a cold laugh. "Yes."

"Who?"

The back of Kain's throat burned. "Cecil."

He didn't look up at the Warrior's face; he dreaded seeing the calm expression he suspected he might see there, or -- even worse -- whatever the Warrior could muster that was close enough to compassion.

The silence stretched on, until the Warrior said, "I'm sorry, Kain. Truly."

 _Sorry._ Kain clenched his fist, waiting for something more, while knowing there would be nothing. _What could he say, in any case?_ He turned away.

"It's raining," the Warrior said eventually, as if Kain may not have noticed. "I've pitched a tent. You should – "

Kain whirled around, rage suddenly tearing through him. It welled up in him so quickly and so furiously that he had no time at all to put in place any of the guards he had so carefully constructed against it throughout the years. All of the walls he had built crumbled, and he was more naked now without them than he would have been had they never existed at all. He tore his helm from his head and threw it into the deep shadow beyond, not caring where it fell, not caring if he never saw its grinning teeth again. His breath burned in his chest and for a moment he wished there was something, anything for him to kill.

"Kain." The Warrior's tone was infinitely reasonable, almost blasé, and Kain felt the light pressure of a hand on his forearm. "Come inside. I think we should –"

"Tell me," Kain growled, the words forcing their way up his throat and out of his mouth, noticing that the Warrior did not even have the nous to look startled. Instead, he simply furrowed his brow, looking at Kain again as if he were a problem to be solved. “Tell me what you think.”

"You’re tired," he explained, as if it should be obvious. "You need to rest. You'll feel better – "

The next moment was a blur. Kain was taller and more heavily built, but even so the Warrior was hardly slight and Kain could not account for how quickly his fists balled in the cape around his friend’s throat, how little effort it took him to push him backwards against the wall, his head hitting the cold stone with a dull thud. Kain had no idea what exactly he planned to do next – but before he could think on it long, the Warrior's hand came up, clamping like a vice around his wrist, but that was his only resistance.

They stared at each other, and rain swept between them.

"You know nothing," Kain eventually managed to get out through gritted teeth, but again he did not know what he was accusing the Warrior of or why. "You have no idea – none at all – "

For a moment, the Warrior's fingers tightened around his wrist. Kain blinked, and realised that his eyes felt hot. There was dampness on his face that was not rain. "Cecil was my _friend._ Do you even understand that?"

Kain looked at the Warrior's face and met that same cold, blue gaze he knew so well. In the past, its certainty had been a comfort to him, but now it only made him angrier

"Isn't that why you did it?" The Warrior's voice was quiet. "You've given him a second chance, Kain. You knew that when you set out. This path – it's to protect them, is it not? To give them a chance at victory?"

Kain was suddenly very aware of the heave of his lungs, the rush of blood in his ears. He dropped his head, feeling light-headed and suddenly, horribly nauseated. His vision slowly began to white out, and he blinked, trying desperately to get it back.

 _Victory._ The word repeated itself in Kain's head. _No. Not victory. Just a chance, a chance to go back…._

Kain swallowed. The Warrior was right, as he always seemed to be, but Kain could not help but feel it was for the wrong reasons. _For Cosmos_. The words were in his mind with new meaning. If he had suspected the moment the Warrior ended their oath with the phrase, the truth of it was unavoidable now. _How different our goals are, friend_. How different, after all.

The Warrior of Light wanted to win a battle. A second chance, to him, meant a second chance for Cosmos' victory. Kain wanted to send them – all of them, all of Cosmos' chosen – home.

He blinked, and there was only rain in his eyes. He did not bother to ask himself if he could truly have been so blind.

Even as he turned the realisations over in his mind, Kain could not find it in himself to begrudge the Warrior the things he wanted. If there were any man in this godforsaken world who had less, Kain was hard-pressed to think of him. There were no memories of a home for him to long for, no one he could recall with fondness or love. Again, Kain thought of the girl he was certain the Warrior had told him of once and how he had lost her, and wondered if that weren’t the key to it. He’d lost perhaps the only friend he had known – certainly the only one he had ever mentioned – and maybe it still drove him, led him to believe that victory was the only answer.

Everything was ground beneath the wheels of the dark, brutal logic of this place, and if the Warrior had ever been anything different, Kain recognised, he had now rebuilt himself to conform entirely to its rules, to accept them as the truth and obey them faithfully: die for another chance to live, kill their allies to ensure their survival.

 _And he is right,_ Kain realised, the familiar dull, sickening feeling worming its way through his stomach. _There is nothing you can do but commit._

Slowly, Kain became aware of the world around him once more, the warmth of the Warrior's breath against his ear, the grip of his fingers digging into his wrist.

"Kain."

Kain didn't answer him, but he slowly relaxed his hold, letting the Warrior away from the wall. He could not let go entirely, not yet. He felt his legs would collapse beneath him if he tried.

"It had to be done, Kain." The Warrior of Light's breath shifted the hair that lay against Kain's ear as he spoke. He unwound his fingers from his wrist, and Kain felt his hand move down his arm, over his shoulder to the side of his face. "You know that in the end, this path is the correct one." Kain saw the Warrior's eyes flick up to his face, his tongue run quickly over his bottom lip. "It's the path you chose. I'd trust no one else but you to see it done."

Kain's throat went dry. Longing coalesced in his chest, though if he had been asked he could not have pinpointed exactly for what -- _a different choice. A different life, perhaps_ \-- knowing only that the pain was so bright and immediate that it seemed to take on a life of its own, burning him up from the inside out.

He again felt the warm drift of the Warrior's breath on his face. "I know when I explain to Cosmos she will understand that you have done no wrong."

The Warrior's lips were on his before his mind had caught up enough to protest, and he felt the Warrior's hand fumble with the armour at his groin.

Kain pulled back abruptly, too shocked to process much. "What are you –"

"Please, Kain." The Warrior began to bend at the knees. "I know it will –"

_Please, Kain._

The echo of Cecil's last words to him sent a shock through him that stopped everything. It knocked the breath from his chest; put the smell of Cecil's blood congealing beneath his fingernails back in his nostrils, undiluted by the rain. Before he had time to think his hands were on the Warrior's shoulders, hauling him upright.

"How dare you?" he managed to get out through gritted teeth, the goodwill, the excuses he had been willing to extend to him just minutes before evaporating. "Do you think that I could –"

Through the haze of his anger, Kain registered that the Warrior was making the same expression as before – his brow furrowed, mild confusion clouding his features. "I'm sorry, Kain," he said. "I only thought to –"

Kain almost snarled at him, about to ask what he could possibly have been thinking, before the rest of the truth he realised he’d been hiding from came crashing round his ears.

The Warrior always seemed to be doing things for their comrades; he'd spar with the Onion Knight for as long as the child had energy -- no matter how long he'd just been on patrol -- and would repeatedly model techniques for Bartz to mimic. He'd even eaten Laguna's cooking, though he never commented on the taste. It didn't seem to occur to him that he could say no, and thanks were accepted with blank perplexity, as if he didn't quite understand what was required of him. With a sudden, cold clutch in his stomach, Kain wondered if all of this was simply another form of what he'd witnessed time and time again with the others – the Warrior did these things simply because he thought it was something that Kain wanted, something he _needed_ , and he did not even realise he had a choice in the matter.

 _Morale,_ Kain thought, a sour twist on his lips. _Kindness_. Of course. What else could there be? Kain had realised long ago that there was nothing he could give the Warrior of Light that he needed, and the idea that he might come to him simply because he wanted nothing more than Kain himself was so absurd as to make him laugh. It was not, Kain thought bitterly, that the Warrior of Light saw him and cared for what he was, _who_ he was – it was that he didn't see him at all.

Pain stabbed through him so suddenly that he had to close his eyes. Dropping his head, he swallowed, gulped the thought down so it could sit with every other painful realisation he’d ever had, down as deep as he could push it.

Kain released the Warrior's shoulders, turning away from him, disgust – with himself, with everything – curling up from his chest into the back of his throat. He could not bring himself to turn back, even when he heard the Warrior of Light calling his name.

***

There was no need for a watch – Kain could well believe that the Warrior of Light had cut down every manikin within any dangerous distance, and the fens themselves should have provided adequate defence from other threats.

The rain had begun again in earnest after Kain had walked away. He had known even as he walked that there was nowhere he could go.

_It was your choice. I'd trust no one else to see it done._

It _had_ been his choice, of course. It had been a trap of his own making and he had walked into it willingly enough, though he honestly could see no other path but the one he had taken, and there was no going back. He felt ashamed now of how harshly he had spoken to the Warrior and how roughly he had treated him; it was not the way a man should behave. Kain almost had to smile – no, a man killed his oldest friend in the mud and rain and told him it was for his own benefit.

He supposed half his anger had sprung from envy: envy of the Warrior of Light's simplicity and conviction of purpose, his single-mindedness, his belief in his own goodness. It was a familiar feeling; half of his friendship with Cecil had been consumed by it.

Kain had returned to the ruined castle eventually; apologised for his behaviour, of course; retrieved his helm from where he had thrown it and crawled inside the tent away from the rain. As the Warrior of Light removed his own armour Kain saw a spreading bruise on his shoulder, noticed for the first time the small lacerations across his fingers and forearms, and realised that he had not asked if the Warrior had been injured. It was one other thing to add to his growing tally of sins, he supposed, if a minor one by comparison.

"Why didn't you use a potion on this, my friend?" he'd asked as he watched the Warrior dress the badly injured fingers on his left hand, over the dirtying bandage that covered the slice Kain had made in his palm only days earlier.

The Warrior glanced up as if mildly surprised. "I was saving it in case you needed it," he said. "You should take it." The Warrior reached into his pack and then pressed the small green bottle into Kain's hand. "Your path is more challenging than mine."

Kain had looked down at the bottle in his hands, before muttering a word of thanks and tucking it away.

Now, he listened to the sound of the rain falling lightly on the outside of the tent, the pale glow of morning beginning to crest the mountain peaks. He had not slept but merely listened to the sound of the Warrior's steady, even breath in the darkness.

They had not talked about the logical outcome of their plan. It remained unspoken between them, Kain because he couldn't bring himself to speak of it just yet, and the Warrior, he imagined, because he felt no need for debate.

Kain couldn’t help but wonder at the Warrior’s mind. Kain could not deny that he had pictured the two of them together at the end – he could ask for no better fate than to die as he wished he had lived, but he now realised that the Warrior would likely deny him even that. Would he attempt to cut Kain down, telling him that he would be needed the next time around, that Kain should be thanking for sending him forward to take part in Cosmos' triumph? The mere fact he had said nothing about it suggested that it was already decided, and Kain held no illusions about the Warrior's capacity for self-sacrifice. He wondered, when it came down to it, which one of them would be quick enough to strike the final blow.

With more bitterness than he wanted to feel, Kain realised that all the trials of Mount Ordeals were capable of was revealing a truth that life had buried: the mountain had not _changed_ Cecil -- it had merely set him on the path he should have been on all along. But with Kain it had only served to reinforce that he could not be different. The years he had spent breaking himself against its flank had taught him that much, at least.

The Warrior did not stir with the dawn's light, and the rain began to lift. Kain rose slowly, his shoulder and neck aching where Cecil's sword had so very nearly cut him. He had only removed enough of his armour to make sleeping possible, and, after a lifetime of training, could replace it quickly and silently as he needed to now. After a moment's hesitation, he removed the potion the Warrior had given him from his pack, placing it on the ground at the end of his bedroll. He did not spare a backward glance at the Warrior's sleeping face, fearing his heart would fail him. Without further pause, he exited the tent into the half-light outside.

_Goodbye, my friend. Goodbye._

He was the same man he had been at fifteen, twenty, twenty-one – realising that he was falling in love with Rosa but not having the courage to tell her, running from his friends because he could not stand to accept their forgiveness. It seemed that he was always leaving in the middle of things, with matters unfinished or ruined behind him. It didn’t matter, he supposed. Perhaps he was unsuited to anything else, for sweet goodbyes and promises of returning, or of seeing each other again before the end, either for good or for ill.

The path would burn behind him, but he would walk it until it was done.

***

"Growing weary, are we, warrior of Cosmos?"

Kain bristled at the sound of Garland's voice. He had known the man was tracking him for some time – after taking Squall to the hidden cave in the Mirage Sandsea, he had been forced to take a circuitous route, doubling back through Lufenia and doing his best to make his wanderings look aimless, fearful that the Chaos warriors would discern where he was hiding his comrades. So far, it seemed they had not guessed. Leading Garland on a merry chase had been necessary, but it had taken its toll. The landscape was treacherous, the mountains not easy to navigate.

Kain did not answer him; he merely straightened his spine, allowing a smile to creep across his face, a snigger to escape his lips.

"The price of treachery is high, and one that you can ill afford to pay. Do you honestly think your efforts will make any difference?"

Kain turned. Garland loomed in the shadows of the pillars of the Chaos Shrine, his eyes glowing behind his helmet, his blade almost as tall as Kain himself. "If you've come to fight, then fight. I've no time for conversation," he said, spitting the last word with as much contempt as he could muster.

To his surprise, Garland simply laughed, the sound echoing through the shrine's inner chamber. He lowered his sword, letting the long edge lean against the floor. "I needn't waste my time or energy. You'll share the same fate as that insolent woman."

Kain blinked a moment. Surely Garland could not mean that, having failed to bring Lightning down himself, she had fallen to the manikin horde. He tightened his fingers around his lance, pain and regret suddenly coursing through him, before looking into Garland's eyes. Kain paused. Garland's gaze was trained on him, but this time it was accompanied by something else. With a mild jolt, Kain realised that there was a glimmer of amusement behind the usual flat, cruel stare.

The man was deliberately provoking him.

Kain allowed the corner of his lip to twitch, letting Garland know that he had his measure. "No," he said after a moment. "I think not."

"Hmph." Garland raised his blade again but did not move into an attack stance. "As if it matters what you think. All your plans will come to naught."

"Perhaps." Kain watched him, looking for an opening to attack, a sign that Garland had let his guard down. He could not afford an injury at this stage of the game, and any strike would have to be quick and opportunistic.

"Do you know how many have tried to escape the cycles? How many petty players have been brought low by their own schemes?"

Kain was barely listening, his eyes skating over Garland's armour. _The knee. There's a gap above the knee. A weak joint below the elbow. A space above the groin._ In the end, however, Garland was too seasoned an opponent for such trickery, and, as if reading Kain's mind, he moved his blade across his body, blocking any path to attack.

"Would you like to know," Garland asked, almost conversationally, "how you died last time?"

Kain narrowed his eyes, sucking in a quick breath. “No.”

Ignoring him, Garland let out a low laugh. "Perhaps it was the time before. In any case, it was a mercy killing after what that jester had done to you. You thanked him in the end. I always suspected Golbez had a soft heart."

Kain set his jaw. _Enough of this._ He began to raise his lance, but Garland's next words stopped him short.

"Or perhaps you'd like me to tell you how _he_ died."

Kain did not need to ask whom Garland meant. Their eyes locked, and Kain wondered what, exactly, Garland knew.

"I won't deny I was surprised when he returned after the first time – it was planned that he should perish with that obnoxious girl. I suppose that is the benefit of artificial life."

Kain could almost hear the smirk in Garland's voice. He opened his mouth, knowing full well that he was walking into a trap. "What do you mean?"

"You don't know?" Garland leaned back. Kain could not tell if his surprise was affected or genuine. "I suppose he does not yet know himself. But I had credited you Cosmos warriors with at least some small amount of intelligence."

Kain swallowed. _Artificial life? Could it be?_ He shook his head. No. The Warrior of Light was as far removed from the manikins as he himself was. _And yet…_

Kain was jerked out of his thoughts by Garland's voice.

"I won't deny, however, that it has been amusing to watch him play at humanity." The motionless mask appeared to sneer, and Kain could not help but wonder if there were anything left beneath it at all. "Amusing, but pathetic. I can't imagine what you thought you were gaining from such an… alliance."

Kain could hear the anger behind Garland's voice. He glanced up, eyes raking him, attempting to produce with a glare what he could not risk doing with his lance. He let his lip curl. "Jealous, are we?"

Kain was barely quick enough to leap out of the way before Garland whipped his blade down, the tiles where he had been standing a moment before shattering under the impact.

Satisfied, Kain danced back, studying his neck for a vent, anything he might use to ram his lance straight through the man’s throat.

But then, as abruptly as it had begun, Garland's attack halted, and he seemed to pull back into himself, reining in his rage with effort. "Do not test me, warrior of Cosmos. Even if you bested me, you'd be in no fit state to carry on with your futile plan."

In that, at least, Kain knew he spoke the truth. Nonetheless, he cocked his head at Garland, raising his lance. Sneering, he said, "And perhaps next time you'll have a story of your own death to tell me."

"Perhaps," Garland said mildly, "but it will not be by your hand." Garland's horned helmet moved slightly sideways, as if he were sizing Kain up. "Do you imagine you know what you're dealing with? Do you think, in the end, all your plotting, all your penance, will mean a thing? You have no understanding of this world whatsoever." Garland's voice grew cold. "You don't even know the man you call a friend. Believe me, he is far from that."

Kain said nothing, watching him.

"The measure of a man is in battle. Your petty friendships are mere ashes on the wind – they change nothing. The cycles continue. They always have, and they always will." Garland leaned back, some of the aggression going out of his stance. "I have seen that man die so many times I have lost count. Sometimes cleanly. Sometimes far less so. I remember more than you have ever forgotten. Think on that, before you speak to _me_ of such petty things as jealousy."

Kain almost considered launching an attack on Garland as he turned to go, but in the end he refrained, for practical reasons, yes, but also for others he could not explain. Watching the man's back as he disappeared into the dusk outside, Kain realised that perhaps Garland too had seen so many cycles that whatever place he had come from, if not forgotten, had ceased to hold any relevance for him. Startled, Kain thought that perhaps he was as much of this world as the Warrior of Light was – the world that had formed his friend had also formed this man, breaking them down to build them into something that better suited its purpose, whatever that may be.

Even so, the Warrior had learned at least a modicum of compassion, of kindness and mercy. With Garland, being trapped in the cycles had seemed to deepen the layers of his cruelty and sink him so far into despair that he would ever know anything else. Kain felt a twinge of regret as he thought again of the Warrior waking alone in the fens – for all that he had failed, he had at least been trying to be kind.

Kain did not understand Garland's purpose in coming here, and for a moment he wondered if the man truly understood it himself. He had made clear the fact that he intended to let the manikins wipe out what little remained of Cosmos' army. The only thing his coming had achieved was to steel Kain's purpose – the cycles _would_ end. If with his lance Kain could ensure it, then there was little else to think about, and only one direction to go.

***

He could have left her, he supposed – whether he took her down or whether he allowed the Chaos witch to do it for him, it made no difference. Looking down at Tifa's sleeping face now, he wondered if it had been a mistake not to turn away, to continue on past the battle as if he had not seen it. Zidane, for all his lack of height, was surprisingly heavy, and he weighed Kain down.

At the last moment, he had been unable to do it – misplaced duty or something else had made him turn back, to intervene before Ultimecia could strike her killing blow. He had not expected the witch to remain silent about what he had been doing, about the allies he had felled. He counted them off in his head. _Cecil. Bartz, Firion, Zidane. Squall. The Onion Knight._ The last time he had seen Lightning he had been trying to drive the point of his spear into the back of her spine. Kain was surprised that Ultimecia's revelation to Tifa seemed to be the first she'd heard of his treachery – after he had failed to ensure Lightning's silence, he had felt certain that she would not stop until all of the others were warned, though he supposed he should not have been surprised that she had failed. He had weakened her after all, and he found himself wondering if Tifa’s ignorance was a sign that Garland spoke truly of Lightning’s fate.

He hoped it was not the case, but it seemed unlikely.

 _Or perhaps not_. Lack of field training could explain Tifa’s confusion just as well. His allies were disorganised, and communication between them was poor. Asking Bartz, Zidane and Vaan to stick to a schedule was worse than futile, and Laguna looking for a rendezvous point, despite his claim to have been a professional soldier once, was something Lightning had only bothered with once.

Tifa shifted in her sleep, the long dark rope of her hair falling from her shoulder.

_Why did she follow me?_

Ultimecia had denounced him, and Tifa had seen him pick up Zidane's prone body and depart. Her own eyes must have told her that what the witch said was true.

But she had followed him anyway, thrown her last potion over him. She had told him that she trusted him. As much as it had galled him to admit it, he had needed the potion – pride had made him return the one the Warrior had given him, but the encounter with Exdeath and the manikins he had set on him had extracted its pound of flesh. There was nothing he did not believe he could endure, physically at least, and the manikins were no match for him one-on-one, but the sheer weight of their numbers could be deadly.

For a moment, Kain watched her sleep. Now would be the time to do it, if he dared – Tifa was utterly peaceful, face unclouded, her lashes dark against the softness of her cheeks. Kain realised that part of him felt she was a fool for trusting so easily and so completely; another part wished desperately for her to retain that faith. It would be a kindness to do it now – she would never know of his betrayal, and he would not see it in her eyes before they went dark. But try as he might, he could not bring himself to lift his lance. _She trusts you. Can you bring yourself to abuse it? What kind of man are you?_

Kain supposed, in the end, that that was the question he had been trying his whole life to answer. In allowing Tifa to live, he wondered if he was betraying the Warrior of Light, the oath that they had made to see this plan through, to ensure the survival of their friends. _No, it's not a betrayal._ He simply needed time.

Kain's back stiffened. Darkness crept slowly over his consciousness, a sensation he could not have described had he been asked, except to say that it was like ice creeping over a frozen lake, a shadow that seeped along the ground with nothing to cast it.

He had accepted that he might never be free of the hooks in his mind, the spells Golbez had sunk into it that told him of the man's comings and goings. The latticework of scars that ran across his back -- the origin of which he had not even been able to bring himself to tell the Warrior of Light – still ached in the cold, as if the mental reminders were not enough.

The magic was too deeply embedded, Golbez's terrifying proficiency in the dark arts too complete for him to rid himself of its influence. Kain had not expected to see his _Lord_ again after Zeromus' final defeat, so he had supposed it mattered little. Now, he gritted his teeth, so black and so powerful was the sensation. He wondered if Golbez either knew or cared about the effect he still had, or if he would have spared him it if he could.

Kain stood, casting a backward glance at Tifa as he did. He would not wander far, but he did not wish for her to wake and see him speaking with Golbez. _More subterfuge, more lies,_ he thought grimly as he made his way a short distance from their camp.

"Cecil is safe," he said aloud to the empty air when he was far enough away to be confident he would not wake Tifa.

"I am aware." Golbez drifted out of the darkness, silent as ever, his helmet caging his unknowable face. “You’ve done well.”

Kain swallowed, the words echoing through his mind. He did not like to think too hard on what memory they might unleash, or what he had done in the past that might have prompted Golbez to say them to him.

He knew that Golbez was far too observant to miss the whitening of his knuckles as they tightened around his lance, and he asked himself again how much remained of those spells and leashes; if he attacked the man now, could Golbez simply stop him with a wave of his hand?

He would not attack, they both knew. But the thought unsettled Kain more than he could say.

"I need no pleasantries or petting from you," Kain spat, loosening his fingers from around his lance with effort, letting his arms drop to his sides.

"Of course." Golbez did not seem perturbed, but Kain could only remember a handful of times when he had been: when the dark spells that controlled him suddenly dissipated and he realised he'd been attempting to murder his own younger brother; when he discovered how close he had come to destroying the inhabitants of the blue planet, just as Zemus had bid. And even then, he had quickly shrouded himself once more, leaving with Fusoya to attempt to atone for what he had done and most likely lose his life in doing so.

Kain wondered suddenly if Golbez regretted the fact that he had not perished in the fight but had lived on with the knowledge of his deeds burning bright in his mind.

Something close to pity wormed its way into Kain's heart for a moment, before he abruptly crushed it.

"Then why have you come here? Surely not to tell me how pleased you are with my progress," Kain said. _It was your words that put this in motion,_ he wanted to shout. _You should have done it, not me._ Cruelty surged through him. "Have you finally come to assist me in killing the girl?"

Golbez said nothing for a time. Truly, Kain had thought he might simply leave, but then, he knew that if Golbez had something to say, it would take more than petty barbs to drive him away.

"I am aware I set you on the most difficult of paths," Golbez said eventually. Incredulous, Kain turned his eyes upon him. Golbez appeared to ignore him. "I would not have done it had I not believed you capable of seeing it through."

Kain had to laugh at that. "Indeed. It’s flattering to know how many people think me capable of killing my friends," he said, aware even as he said it of the irony in his words. Hadn't he proved himself entirely capable of just that?

Golbez was impassive, silent in the darkness. "Or perhaps," he said after a pause, "of protecting them."

Kain opened his mouth, but the stinging rebuttal died in his throat. He swallowed and stared at Golbez.

"Any mage worthy of the name can sense the magic he has sown," Golbez said after a moment or two of silence, "even if the spells have faded or worn down over time. Even if they have been struggled and fought against or if someone has tried to erase them."

Kain watched him, almost fearful of where Golbez's words were heading. "Stop –"

“The damage to your mind," Golbez interrupted, "was due to your struggle." In the darkness, his helm creaked towards Kain, a shadow against the night sky. "I do not bear similar scars."

Kain barely had time to digest the meaning behind Golbez's words before he went on.

"I could tell myself that I was a child when he first spoke to me. But even a child knows the difference between right and wrong.” Golbez paused, and Kain wondered if he was waiting for Kain to offer him some kind of reassurance or condolence. _Surely not._ After a moment, Golbez continued, “The scars will fade.”

Kain realised now that Golbez was entirely aware of the dark pall that he cast across Kain's consciousness whenever he was near; knew that whenever Kain said his name, the words 'my Lord' still tried to force their way from his lips instead. It had been years – the spells still held, though Golbez had ceased to pull upon them.

“Did you come here to mock me?” Kain snorted, a harsh, bitter noise. “I’ve no magic to rid myself of you.”

“Perhaps not,” Golbez replied, turning away. “Not yet.”

Kain wanted to call after him, to ask him what he meant. Instead, he found himself choking on his words, his throat too tight to let them pass.

"Know this," Golbez said as he walked away, his armour a ghost only slightly paler than the night. "I would not have entrusted my brother's safety to you had I not been forced to break you in such a way as to leave those scars upon you. Know that and remember it."

***

The moonlight was almost blue, filtering down through the clouds and dappling the dark earth with light. Of all the things that Kain thought would have made him homesick, this was the last, but nonetheless he felt that familiar twist in his stomach. He remembered evenings spent with Cecil and Rosa when they were no more than children, peering up at the moon through one of Cid's telescopes and wondering what it would have been like to go there, knowing such things were impossible.

Kain and Tifa had rejoined Lightning, Vaan, Laguna and Yuna when they had found them. He had almost considered expressing to Lightning his relief that she was still alive, and that Garland's implication had been untrue after all, but he could almost see the incredulous quirk of her eyebrow, hear her spitting the words _Why, still hoping to do it yourself, Highwind?_ In the end, he had said nothing.

They had stopped for a short rest and whatever sleep could be snatched so close to the Rift, where the manikins were out in force, relentless and untiring. They had grown fewer more recently, but every precaution was still required. Kain had drawn first watch and had offered to do it alone so that the others could rest, but Lightning had simply muttered, "Like hell you will."

He'd started to tell her that he was more than a match for any manikin, but she'd simply looked at him and said, "It's not the manikins I'm worried about," and no one had said anything to contradict her.

She hadn't spoken to him again or looked in his direction since they'd begun their watch. They'd camped in a dead-ended canyon with the rock face behind them and made no fire, but still Kain could see the tense set of her shoulders, the bunch of muscles in her arms. Once, he watched her head slump forward before she jerked herself awake again, pressing her chin on her forearms where they lay across her drawn-up knees.

"You should get some sleep," Kain said to her, not expecting a response. Instead, she'd turned her head towards him, an incredulous expression on her face.

"And leave you here unsupervised? No thanks."

Kain exhaled, closing his eyes and turning his face upward to the moonlight. "How many times, Lightning? You know I had reasons."

" _Stupid_ reasons."

Kain let that go. "It had to be done," he said, aware that he was echoing the Warrior of Light's own words to him.

She stood then, rage making her eyes incandescent in the dark. " _It had to be done?_ Is that _all_ you can say?" For a moment, Kain watched her ball her fist and thought she was going to strike him, but in the end she simply exhaled, uncoiling her muscles with obvious effort, some of the fury ebbing from her face. "Reasons. Fuck, Highwind. Did Firion piss in your cornflakes or something? At least _he_ could have defended himself, but Zidane, Onion Knight – they're just _kids_ \-- "

"And you'd rather I left them to be cut down by manikins?" Kain asked. "You'd rather I left _children_ to fight alone against those abominations? To perish in this cycle at their hands with no hope of return?"

For a moment, Kain watched a series of emotions chase each other across her face, before settling back into anger. "I'd _rather_ you not do the job _for_ them."

Kain exhaled again, wishing he could make her understand. It was impossible, and he did not have the energy to fight her, not now, not when they were so close to the end. He wondered how she found the stamina to be so endlessly combative, before realising it was probably the only thing that kept her on her feet. "It's done, Lightning. Be content to know they'll have another chance."

" _If_ your Chaos friend was telling the truth. _If_ this world works the way you think it does, and _if_ that idiot can keep the manikins away from Cosmos for long enough to buy us time." She sat down by his side, not too close but just close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her, and drew her knees up, resting her arms across them. Kain saw her give him a sidelong look, and wondered if she was contemplating a truce. After a moment she dug her fingers in the muscle of her shoulder and muttered, "At least he's an idiot with a good sword arm, I suppose."

Kain looked at her in surprise. "You fought?"

"He tried to kill me and I stopped him, so yeah." She let out a long breath. "Don't worry, Cosmos stopped us before it got too far. He's still in one piece, not that it matters."

Kain swallowed, wondering if his relief was obvious to her. He supposed the Warrior had simply been attempting to carry out their plan, as he most likely would have if confronted with any of their allies, but Kain was filled with the burning need to know what had happened, how the fight had started, and what the Warrior had said. _Tell me,_ he wanted to shout, though he couldn't remember the last time he had actually raised his voice in anger. He almost wanted to stand and shake the words out of her, though he knew the only thing that would earn him was her fist in his teeth and, most likely, her blade in his throat. He couldn't help but smile at what a bitter irony _that_ would have been, from _this_ woman, who presumed to lecture him on the morality of this world, who talked of rules he had accepted as obsolete, and tried to use them to condemn him.

Idly, Kain wondered if her anger masked her hypocrisy so well when she was alone with her own thoughts, or whether she, like the rest of them, was simply grasping.

In the end, he did nothing, watching the wind blow the strands of her hair, the stone of her face growing slowly softer with tiredness.

"You can stop staring," she said, jerking him out of his near-reverie, turning her head to look at him. "I won't be as easy to pick off as the others. Stop looking for a weak spot. There isn’t one."

His face hardened, her words hitting him like a slap. "Is that what you –"

He only saw her eyes for a moment before she dipped them away from his face, but it was enough to decipher what was truly driving her words. Kain wondered if his surprise was plain on his face. For a moment, his anger abated, and he almost wanted to tell her that he was sorry again, despite the fact he was almost completely sure that she would laugh at that until she was sick, if only to cover up the flash of utter devastation he had seen in her eyes before she had dropped her gaze. She was hurt and he had hurt her – not only physically. He was surprised: he had not thought she cared so deeply about him to be concerned about such things. Even so, he had not wanted it to come to that. But he had not wanted a great many things…

He suspected these were the consequences of what he had chosen. _What I have always chosen…_

He opened his mouth to say something, though the only things that came to mind were platitudes that she would never accept. He almost considered repeating to her what Garland had said to him but remembered that the man himself had told her as much. _Manikins are merciless. They know only how to deal with death and destruction, from which there can be no return._ She knew as well as anyone the consequences of her actions, but still she persisted, still she drove them onwards. He wondered if this illusion of control was so precious to her that she honestly felt the bargain was fair.

"So just forget about trying," she said suddenly, her voice snapping through the air like something living. "Your damn boyfriend couldn't do it, and neither can you."

Kain drew in a sharp breath, head flicking towards her. "My – I don't –"

He was cut off by her snorted laugh. "Oh, please. Do you think _anyone_ didn't know? Fuck, even _Garland_ knew."

Kain had no answer for her and simply shut his mouth, looking away.

"You two have been thick as thieves since day one." Lightning stretched her legs out in front of her, leaning back on her palms. "Though he sent you off to die in the end, didn't he? Just like the rest of us. And I'd almost started to think he was a human being, too."

Kain's blood ran cold for a moment, and his thoughts jumbled with each other, trying to find a response. He remembered how he had left the Warrior alone in the Melmond Fens without so much as a goodbye; how different their parting had been from the one before, before Golbez had told him of the cycles.

With a sudden, bright ache in his chest, he remembered the words he'd spoken, the token he'd tried to give the Warrior. _I was a fool,_ he thought suddenly. Nothing could flourish in this place – everything would be cut off and deadened before it could even sprout. Kain wondered what might have been if he had met the Warrior in Baron -- or in any place other than this godforsaken world – if things might have gone differently for him, for both of them.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps, like him, the man the Warrior was was the only one he was capable of being. Garland's words played through his head again; they still made no sense, but Kain suspected there might have been a certain amount of truth to them, twisted though it may have been by the man’s blindness to anything but the fight.

Even so, regardless of Garland's mockery, Kain did not believe the Warrior of Light was entirely devoid of feeling. He spoke of mourning for his friend; the Warrior didn't remember it, but Kain did. _And I have seen kindness in his eyes…._

"It's not like that at all," he finally answered, his voice cold.

"Really," Lightning said, her voice flat. "Then where is he?"

"Cosmos must be protected."

"Cosmos. Of course." She didn't look at him. "You keep telling yourself that."

Anger seethed within him. Who was this woman to make such simple, damning statements as if they were fact? As if what he did were for Cosmos’ sake. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he spat. "You _cannot_ presume to tell me anything about what we discussed, what decisions were made –"

"No, I can't," Lightning cut him off. "I can only see two idiots willing to throw their lives away in the most stupid way possible for some goddess, who, by the way, won't thank you for it."

"I never asked –"

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "You men and your stupid need to play the hero. The only thing you end up doing is hurting everyone else."

"There was no other way, Lightning," Kain said after a pause, knowing she wouldn't accept it.

True to form, she snorted a short laugh. "Did you decide that or did he?"

"We _both_ did."

"Huh," she said, her lip curling. "Sure. Whatever."

"You don't know him."

In the dark, he saw the roll of her eyes. "There's always another way, Kain," she said. "Just because the pair of you are too blind to see it doesn't mean it's not there. I tried to talk some sense into him before I left, but he wasn't having it. I shouldn't be surprised." She let out a short laugh, tinged with obvious disgust.

Kain sneered. There was only so much of her impulsive narrow-mindedness he could take. "And is _this_ your other way?" he asked, jerking his head back towards their sleeping companions, not caring enough now to keep the fury out of his voice. "They still die, Lightning. At least with our way –" he watched her eyes narrow as he said _our_ , "they would be safely asleep, with a second chance. As would you."

Kain watched as Lightning opened her mouth to rebut him, anger seeming to make her momentarily incoherent.

"Maybe I meant another way for _you_ ," she finally managed to get out, her voice thick with rage. "But whatever, Highwind. Obviously you just prefer stabbing your friends in the back." She let out a short, derisive breath. "But then, I suppose that would require you actually _having_ friends. I mean, apart from what's-his-name."

It seemed to Kain as if her words had sucked all of the oxygen from the air, and he groped for a response. It dawned on him then that perhaps she had not been trying to take anything from him, after all. Perhaps she had been willing not just to fight him, but to fight _for_ him, to convince him of another way to see the world, to understand that his allies had cared for him and would not have asked him to sacrifice himself in this way.

"You said you came up with this fucking stupid plan together," Lightning continued when he did not speak. She turned to him, her eyes furious. "But I bet he never tried to talk you out of it, did he?"

Kain could not answer her; it would have been futile. But even as he sat in silence, his anger at her nearly palpable between them, he knew that if Lightning had been the one he had gone to with his plan she would have fought him to exhaustion to prevent him from carrying it out, not simply for the sake of the others, but for his own as well.

Something clenched in his chest, and for a moment, Kain wondered how he had become so despicable and pathetic that such hollow concern would perhaps have meant more to him than the Warrior of Light's unshakeable faith that he would do what had to be done.

They duelled with silence, and Kain shoved the thoughts away. In the end, no matter how Lightning may have fought him, the final result would have been the same: they would all be dead, with nothing to console him but the thought that she at least had not wanted him to die. Her rage at Cosmos, at the world they found themselves in, had led them all to this place; her will to reassert control had taken them down the wrong path. Tifa, Vaan, Laguna, Yuna -- they would die, and would not be brought back. If the Warrior of Light was too much of this world and too conditioned to the brutality of the cycles to consider things differently, he was still, in the end, right. His cruelty was tactically superior to Lightning’s version of kindness and would have saved more of them, in the end. And though the Warrior of Light had assented to it, it had been Kain's idea – he had gone to the one person he knew would see things clearly enough to allow him to carry it out, whose certainty would override Kain's own misgivings and doubt.

It was war, after all. And war was many things, none of them kind.

Again Kain wondered who would have been quickest if their plan had been completed, and which one of them would have sent the other to sleep. Now, he realised, he would never know; they would share the same fate, far from each other, never knowing how the other had eventually been taken down. Kain wondered if the Warrior, standing alone beside Cosmos' throne, was having similar thoughts, thinking of the comrades he had not saved or of the man he had not been given the opportunity to say goodbye to.

Lightning turned her face away from him, letting out a short breath and apparently taking his silence as confirmation of her suspicions.

"Lightning."

She turned back towards him, annoyance flickering across her face. For a moment, the words wouldn't come to him; the thought of placing himself in her hands, of opening such a vulnerable part of himself to her, repelled him to an almost violent degree. Then the look he had seen in her eyes the moment before she had glanced away from him played across his mind again, followed by the harsh cut of her words.

He decided to take the chance. He supposed there was nothing to be lost in it now.

Swallowing, Kain asked, "Before you left, did he say… anything?"

"Anything what?" she asked, knitting her brows. "A whole lot of stuff about Cosmos, yeah. But what else is new."

Kain looked at her a moment, wondering if she was wilfully misunderstanding but then saw comprehension dawn in her eyes. She blinked, and understanding was replaced by pity.

She opened her mouth, and Kain realised that she was contemplating a lie – but in the end it was not her way. She closed her mouth.

"Sorry," she muttered to him after a moment, before turning her face away.

For a while, the only sound was the howl of the wind between the rocks, low and inhuman. Lightning shifted next to him, exhaling audibly.

"I don't know what you cooked up together, but at least he did seem like he intended to keep his oath to you," she eventually said, her voice soft and less loaded with venom than it had been before.

For a moment, Kain was almost sure that he had misheard her and wondered if she had resorted to a lie after all. "Oath?" Even he could hear how hoarse his voice sounded.

He saw her glance at him quickly. "I don't know. Laguna talked over the top of most of it. About being your shield or something equally stupid."

Kain swallowed, feeling his throat constrict. Again there was the low indulgent beat in his heart. _Perhaps, perhaps._ The regret at how he'd left things played across his mind – at the very least, the Warrior had always had the best of intentions. He had suggested the oath, knowing it would mean something to Kain, even if he did not understand it himself. Kain had no doubt the Warrior had meant it sincerely, even if the words had been no more than that – just words. Even after everything, he felt the same misguided sense of duty again pull in his chest, and he almost considered standing and calling an end to their rest.

Lightning glanced at him, evidently discerning his intentions. "Leave them," she said softly, jerking her head back to where Yuna, Vaan, Tifa and Laguna sat with their backs propped against the rock face. "They're exhausted. Laguna's okay, he's an old soldier. But the others… they shouldn't even _be_ here. They're not made for this."

She suddenly pounded a fist down into the earth. " _None_ of us should be here," she muttered, turning her face away from him and staring into the distance.

"And yet, here we are," Kain said after a moment, and for once, it seemed, she did not have an answer for him.

***

In the end, it was nothing at all like what he had expected.

He and Cecil had discussed it only once, after a particularly bloody battle, a morbid discussion that had made Kain uncomfortable.

As usual, Rosa had been the one to turn their minds from it, leaning across the table to tuck a strand of Cecil’s hair behind his ear. “Don’t think on it,” she had said, her voice straining to be soft and light. “You either.” She had turned her luminous green eyes to him, and Kain could see the sadness that burned in them. “You survived, that’s all that matters. You both did.”

Kain remembered that Cecil had looked doubtful for a moment, before laughing gently. “You’re right,” he said, his voice carrying that same artificial levity. “I’m sorry, Rosa. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She hadn’t been frightened though – Kain could see that at the time. Or if she had been, it was not for herself. Kain sometimes pictured her alone in her room, wondering how many times she would see Cecil like this after a battle, how many more times he could strap on the Dark Armour before it consumed him, before the man who came home was no longer a Cecil she recognised. Before he never came home at all.

Kain wanted to open his eyes but found he could not. He thought he felt something warm trickle over his forehead.

In the end, he realised, he had been the one to fulfil Rosa’s fears – Cecil had become a Paladin, while he had become the thing that Golbez and his own darkness had made him. He had left them for Mount Ordeals with no promise to return. He wondered if she mourned for him as she might have mourned for Cecil, as she was perhaps mourning for them both, right now _._

 _Cecil is safe,_ he wished he could tell her, as if this one thing could make up for everything he’d done. _He will come back to you. He has another chance._

Light filtered down through the darkness, illuminating the prone forms of the comrades he had felled in the name of this second chance, of halting the cycles and sending everyone home. He wondered if he’d forfeited his own chance to return and decided in the end that it mattered little.

Movement caught his eye in the golden half-light, and Kain watched the Warrior of Light stumble upright, seeming to haul himself to his feet by sheer force of will. Kain’s heart leapt into his throat – he had not thought to see his friend again, but when he opened his mouth to call to him, he found he had no voice.

 _There's a limit to what one man can do. Every second we delay is a blow against him._ He recalled the words he'd spoken when Exdeath revealed Chaos' end game to them, the reason the manikins' numbers had seemed to thin even as they came closer to the source – the Rift had been a distraction after all, to keep Cosmos' remaining warriors away from Order's Sanctuary, leaving it utterly vulnerable to the manikins' attack. If his comrades had seemed more concerned for Cosmos, he could not blame them, but Kain had thought of his oath, of what he had sworn to do. Perhaps he had failed in that. But he need not fail in this.

Kain watched as the Warrior swung around, confusion and uncertainty registering on his face – the first time Kain could remember him ever having displayed either emotion, except in the mildest of forms when trying to puzzle through the intricacies of human interaction. Kain lowered his head as the Warrior turned to face the space where he and his comrades floated – if he would carry any memory of this place with him to wherever he went from here, he did not want his last to be the look on the Warrior’s face as he realised what he had lost.

He would have memories now, Kain realised, although what he might do with them was anyone’s guess. Garland was wrong, Kain told himself again. Perhaps the memories would warm him, push him or change him – give him whatever it was that he currently lacked, fill in the gaps that Kain had once hoped he would fill himself. Perhaps he might think on them and come to believe there were things in a man’s life that burned brighter than victory. Or more truly, at least.

Kain hoped so.

He watched from the corner of his eye as Lightning seemed to incline her head to the Warrior, communicating some message he didn’t know the meaning of. Kain had not arranged to give him any message – there was no way to reach him in Order's Sanctuary – and he wondered if the Warrior would look for one from him. In any case, the darkness had begun to descend again.

Perhaps, in the end, there was nothing to say.


End file.
